Castel Sant'Angelo, the scene of act 3 in Tosca
Credit: Andreas TilleThe Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, a papal fortress and prison until 1901. It serves as the setting for act 3 of Puccini's opera Tosca. After murdering Rome's chief of police, the evil Baron Scarpia, Floria Tosca goes to the Castel Sant'Angelo, where her lover, Mario Cavaradossi, is to be executed. She has been led to believe that it will be a mock execution and is horrified to see him die in a hail of real bullets. As Scarpia's henchmen arrive to arrest her, she throws herself from the castle's ramparts. Famously dismissed by the musicologist Joseph Kerman as a "shabby little shocker", Tosca has become one of the most enduring works in the operatic repertoire.