By the 12th century, the tumulus was fortified as a castleas was the mausoleum of Hadrian, which was turned into the Castel Sant'Angeloand occupied by the Colonna family. After the disastrous defeat of the Commune of Rome at the hands of the Count of Tusculum in 1167, the Colonna were disgraced and banished, and their fortification in the Campo was dismantled. Throughout the Renaissance it passed through the ownership of several major Roman families, who used it as a garden; at the beginning of the 19th century it was in use as a circus.