An ancient Roman temple, still standing
The Pantheon in Rome is an ancient Roman temple built by Agrippa around 27 BCE, destroyed by fire twice, and rebuilt entirely by the emperor Hadrian between 118 and 125 CE. Its coffered dome, 43 metres across, remains the largest unreinforced concrete dome on Earth, lit only through a single oculus.
Hadrian rebuilt Agrippa's temple after two fires
The Pantheon is an ancient Roman temple, now a working Catholic church and one of Rome's busiest museums. Above this point, the coffered dome rises to a single round opening, the oculus, the only source of light inside. The first Pantheon on this ground was built by Marcus Agrippa, son-in-law of the emperor Augustus, around 27 BCE, as a temple dedicated to every god in Rome. That building burned down in a great fire in 80 CE. It was struck by lightning and burned again in 110 CE. The emperor Hadrian rebuilt it completely between about 118 and 125 CE, raising the huge domed rotunda that still stands. Hadrian kept Agrippa's old inscription on the front, crediting a building that no longer existed. Historians still argue over who actually designed it. Some credit the architect Apollodorus of Damascus, the same man Hadrian is said to have exiled, and possibly had executed, after a bitter quarrel over another building's design. Others think Hadrian designed it himself. The Historia Augusta notes that Hadrian put his own name on almost nothing he built, which only deepens the puzzle. The dome itself is a feat of engineering. It measures 43 meters across, exactly matching its own height, and the concrete gets lighter as it rises, from heavy travertine at the base to light pumice stone near the top. Nearly two thousand years on, it remains the largest unreinforced concrete dome on Earth.
A pope turned the pagan temple into a church
In 609, CE, the Byzantine emperor Phocas gave the building to Pope Boniface IV. The pope consecrated it as a Christian church, Santa Maria ad Martyres, Saint Mary and the Martyrs. Pope Boniface IV had the bones of early Christian martyrs carried from the catacombs and placed inside. It was the first time in Rome that a pagan temple became a place of Christian worship. That change is the reason the building still stands. Most other Roman temples were stripped for stone or left to fall apart. This one kept a congregation, and a congregation kept the building standing.
Raphael asked to be buried inside the temple
Raphael, the Renaissance painter, asked to be buried inside the Pantheon when he died in 1520. He had come to admire the building enough to want his grave there. Later, other painters and architects followed his lead. Annibale Carracci, Baldassare Peruzzi and Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola are buried here too, alongside composer Arcangelo Corelli. Centuries later, two kings of united Italy were buried in the same rotunda. Victor Emmanuel II died in 1878, and Umberto I in 1900, buried here with his wife, Queen Margherita of Savoy, who died in 1926. A temple to every god in Rome became the resting place of painters, a composer, and a royal house.
A pope melted the portico's bronze ceiling down
In 1625, Pope Urban VIII stripped the bronze ceiling from the portico outside. The metal went to cast cannons for Castel Sant'Angelo and to make the great bronze canopy over the altar at St. Peter's Basilica. Two bell towers went up on the front of the building around the same period, built to make the old temple look more like a church.
An architect proved the whole dome was Hadrian's
The building's own age was a mystery until 1892. A French architect, Georges Chedanne, studied the foundations and dated bricks stamped with the years 120 and 125 CE. His work proved the entire structure, dome and all, was Hadrian's work, settling a dispute that had run for centuries over whether parts of it were older.
Kings and a painter share the same rotunda
Victor Emmanuel II, Umberto I and Margherita of Savoy remain in their tombs here, close to Raphael's grave, inside the same rotunda. The Pantheon now functions as both a Catholic church and a state museum, run by Italy's Ministry of Culture. It draws nearly nine million visitors a year, more than any other state museum site in Italy. The oculus above still has no glass or covering. Rain falls straight through it onto the floor, where 22 small drains carry the water away, just as they did under Hadrian. The coffered dome, the bronze doors, and the worn granite columns from Egypt are all still in place, under the same roof Hadrian raised nineteen centuries ago.
Rain still falls through the open oculus onto the same floor it has struck for nineteen centuries.
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