Everything about Pantheon Rome totally explained
The
Pantheon (
Latin Pantheon, from
Greek Πάνθειον
Pantheon, meaning "Temple of all the gods") is a building in
Rome which was originally built as a
temple to all the gods of
Ancient Rome, and rebuilt circa 125 AD during
Hadrian's reign. The intended degree of inclusiveness of this dedication is debated. The generic term
pantheon is now applied to a monument in which illustrious dead are buried. It is the best preserved of all Roman buildings, and perhaps the best preserved building of its age in the world. It has been in continuous use throughout its history. The design of the extant building is sometimes credited to the
Trajan's architect
Apollodorus of Damascus, but it's equally likely that the building and the design should be credited to the emperor
Hadrian or his architects. Since the
7th century, the Pantheon has been used as a
Christian church. The Pantheon is currently the oldest standing domed structure in Rome. The height to the
oculus and the diameter of the interior circle are the same, 43.3 metres (142 ft).
History
In the aftermath of the
Battle of Actium (31 BC),
Agrippa built and dedicated the original Pantheon during his third consulship (27 BC). Agrippa's Pantheon was destroyed along with other buildings in a huge fire in 80 AD. The current building dates from about 125 AD, during the reign of the Emperor
Hadrian, as date-stamps on the bricks reveal. It was totally reconstructed with the text of the original inscription ("
M·AGRIPPA·L·F·COS·TERTIVM·FECIT", standing for Marcus Agrippa, Lucii filius, consul tertium fecit meaning, "'Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, consul for the third time, made it") which was added to the new
facade, a common practice in Hadrian's rebuilding projects all over Rome. Hadrian was a cosmopolitan emperor who traveled widely in the East and was a great admirer of Greek culture. He might have intended the Pantheon, a temple to all the gods, to be a kind of
ecumenical or
syncretist gesture to the subjects of the
Roman Empire who didn't worship the old gods of Rome, or who (as was increasingly the case) worshipped them under other names. How the building was actually used isn't known.
Cassius Dio, a Graeco-Roman senator, consul and author of a comprehensive
History of Rome, writing approximately 75 years after the Pantheon's reconstruction, mistakenly attributed the domed building to Agrippa rather than Hadrian. Dio's book appears to be the only near-contemporary writing on the Pantheon, and it's interesting that even by the year 200 there was uncertainty about the origin of the building and its purpose:
Agrippa finished the construction of the building called the Pantheon. It has this name, perhaps because it received among the images which decorated it the statues of many gods, including Mars and Venus; but my own opinion of the name is that, because of its vaulted roof, it resembles the heavens. (Cassius Dio History of Rome 53.27.2)
The building was repaired by
Septimius Severus and
Caracalla in 202 AD, for which there's another, smaller inscription. This inscription reads "pantheum vetustate corruptum cum omni cultu restituerunt" ('with every refinement they restored the Pantheon worn by age').
Medieval
In
609 the
Byzantine emperor Phocas gave the building to
Pope Boniface IV, who converted it into a Christian church and consecrated it to Santa Maria ad Martyres, now known as Santa Maria dei Martiri.
The building's consecration as a church saved it from the abandonment, destruction, and the worst of the spoliation which befell the majority of ancient Rome's buildings during the early
mediaeval period.
Paul the Deacon records the spoliation of the building by the Emperor
Constans II, who visited Rome in July 663:
Remaining at Rome twelve days he pulled down everything that in ancient times had been made of metal for the ornament of the city, to such an extent that he even stripped off the roof of the church [ofthe blessed Mary] which at one time was called the Pantheon, and had been founded in honor of all the gods and was now by the consent of the former rulers the place of all the martyrs; and he took away from there the bronze tiles and sent them with all the other ornaments to Constantinople.
Much fine external marble has been removed over the centuries, and there are capitals from some of the
pilasters in the
British Museum. Two columns were swallowed up in the medieval buildings that abbutted the Pantheon on the east and were lost. In the early seventeenth century,
Urban VIII Barberini tore away the bronze ceiling of the portico, and replaced the medieval campanile with the famous twin towers built by
Maderno, which were not removed until the late nineteenth century. The only other loss has been the external sculptures, which adorned the
pediment above Agrippa's inscription. The
marble interior and the great
bronze doors have survived, although both have been extensively restored.
Renaissance
Since the Renaissance the Pantheon has been used as a
tomb. Among those buried there are the
painters
Raphael and
Annibale Carracci, the composer
Arcangelo Corelli, and the
architect Baldassare Peruzzi. In the
15th century, the Pantheon was adorned with paintings: the best-known is the
Annunciation by
Melozzo da Forlì. Architects, like
Brunelleschi, who used the Pantheon as help when designing the
Cathedral of Florence's dome, looked to the Pantheon as inspiration for their works.
Pope Urban VIII (1623 to 1644) ordered the bronze ceiling of the Pantheon's portico melted down. Most of the bronze was used to make
bombards for the fortification of
Castel Sant'Angelo, with the remaining amount used by the
Apostolic Camera for various other works. It is also said that the bronze was used by
Bernini in creating his famous
baldachin above the high
altar of
St. Peter's Basilica, but according to at least one expert, the Pope's accounts state that about 90% of the bronze was used for the cannon, and that the bronze for the baldachin came from
Venice.
(External Link
). This led the Roman satirical figure
Pasquino to issue the famous proverb:
Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini ("What the barbarians didn't do, the
Barberinis [UrbanVIII's family name] did").
In 1747, the broad frieze below the dome with its false windows was “restored,” but bore little resemblance to the original. In the early decades of the twentieth century, a piece of the original, as could be reconstructed from Renaissance drawings and paintings, was recreated in one of the panels.
Modern
Also buried there are two kings of
Italy:
Vittorio Emanuele II and
Umberto I, as well as Umberto's Queen, Margherita. Although Italy has been a republic since
1946, volunteer members of Italian monarchist organisations maintain a vigil over the royal tombs in the Pantheon. This has aroused protests from time to time from republicans, but the Catholic authorities allow the practice to continue, although the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage
(External Link) is in charge of the security and maintenance.
The Pantheon is still a church and
masses are still celebrated in the church, particularly on important Catholic days of obligation, and for weddings.
Structure
The building is circular with a
portico of three ranks of huge granite Corinthian columns (eight in the first rank and two groups of four behind) under a pediment opening into the
rotunda, under a coffered, concrete
dome, with a central opening (
oculus), the Great Eye, open to the sky. A rectangular structure links the portico with the rotunda. Though often still drawn as a free-standing building, there was a building at its rear into which it abutted; of this building there are only archaeological remains.
In the walls at the back of the portico were niches, probably for statues of
Caesar,
Augustus and
Agrippa, or for the
Capitoline Triad, or another set of gods. The large bronze doors to the
cella, once plated with
gold, still remain but the gold has long since vanished. The pediment was decorated with a sculpture - holes may still be seen where the clamps which held the sculpture in place were fixed.
The 4,535 metric ton (5,000 tn) weight of the concrete dome is concentrated on a ring of
voussoirs 9.1 metres (30 ft) in diameter which form the oculus while the downward thrust of the dome is carried by eight
barrel vaults in the 6.4 metre (21 ft) thick drum wall into eight piers. The thickness of the dome varies from 6.4 metres (21 ft) at the base of the dome to 1.2 metres (4 ft) around the oculus. The height to the oculus and the diameter of the interior circle are the same, 43.3 metres (142 ft), so the whole interior would fit exactly within a cube (alternatively, the interior could house a sphere 43.3 metres (142 ft) in diameter). The Pantheon holds the record for the largest unreinforced concrete dome. The interior of the roof was possibly intended to symbolize the arched vault of the heavens. Finite element analysis of the structure by Mark and Hutchison found a maximum tensile stress of only 18.5 psi (0.13 MPa) at the point where the dome joins the raised outer wall. The stresses in the dome were found to be substantially reduced by the use of successively less dense concrete in higher layers of the dome. Mark and Hutchison estimated that if normal weight concrete had been used throughout the stresses in the arch would have been some 80% higher.
As the best-preserved example of an
Ancient Roman monumental building, the Pantheon has been enormously influential in
Western Architecture from at least the
Renaissance on; starting with
Brunelleschi's 42-meter dome of
Santa Maria del Fiore in
Florence, completed in
1436 – the first sizeable dome to be constructed in
Western Europe since
Late Antiquity. The style of the Pantheon can be detected in many buildings of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; numerous
city halls,
universities and
public libraries echo its portico-and-dome structure. Examples of notable buildings influenced by the Pantheon include: the
Panthéon in Paris, the Temple in
Dartrey, the
British Museum Reading Room,
Manchester Central Library,
Thomas Jefferson's
Rotunda at the
University of Virginia, the
Rotunda of Mosta, in
Malta,
Low Memorial Library at
Columbia University,
New York, the domed Marble Hall of
Sanssouci palace in
Potsdam,
Germany, the
State Library of Victoria, and the Supreme Court Library of Victoria, both in
Melbourne,
Australia, the 52-meter-tall
Ottokár Prohászka Memorial Church in
Székesfehérvár,
Hungary, as well as the
California State Capitol in
Sacramento.
Decoration while a Christian church
The present high altar and the apse were commissioned by
Pope Clement XI (1700-1721) and designed by
Alessandro Specchi. In the apse, a copy of a Byzantine icon of the Madonna is enshrined. The original, now in the
Chapel of the Canons in the Vatican, has been dated to the 13th century, although tradition claims that it's much older. The choir was added in 1840, and was designed by
Luigi Poletti.
The first niche to the right of the entrance holds a
Madonna of the Girdle and St Nicholas of Bari (1686) painted by an unknown artist.
The first chapel on the right, the Chapel of the Annunciation, has a fresco of the
Annunication attributed to
Melozzo da Forli. On the left side is a canvas by
Clement Maioli of
St Lawrence and St Agnes (1645-1650). On the right wall is the
Incredulity of St Thomas (1633) by
Pietro Paolo Bonzi.
The second niche has a 15th century fresco of the Tuscan school, depicting the
Coronation of the Virgin. In the second chapel is the tomb of
King Victor Emmanuel II (died 1878). It was originally dedicated to the Holy Spirit. A competition was held to decide which architect should be given the honor of designing it.
Giuseppe Sacconi participated, but lost - he'd later design the tomb of Umberto I in the opposite chapel.
Manfredio Manfredi won the competition, and started work in 1885. The tomb consists of a large bronze plaque surmounted by a Roman eagle and the arms of the
house of Savoy. The golden lamp above the tomb burns in honor of
Victor Emmanuel III, who died in exile in 1947.
The third niche has a sculpture by
Il Lorenzone of
St Anne and the Blessed Virgin. In the third chapel is a 15th-century painting of the Umbrian school,
The Madonna of Mercy between St Francis and St John the Baptist. It is also known as the Madonna of the Railing, because it originally hung in the niche on the left-hand side of the portico, where it was protected by a railing. It was moved to the
Chapel of the Annunciation, and then to its present position some time after 1837. The bronze epigram commemorated
Pope Clement XI's restoration of the sanctuary. On the right wall is the canvas
Emperor Phocas presenting the Pantheon to Pope Boniface IV (1750) by an unknown. There are three memorial plaques in the floor, one conmmemorating a Gismonda written in the vernacular. The final niche on the right side has a statue of
St. Anastasio (1725) by
Bernardino Cametti.
On the first niche to the left of the entrance is an
Assumption (1638) by
Andrea Camassei. The first chapel on the left, is the Chapel of St Joseph in the Holy Land, and is the chapel of the
Confraternity of the Virtuosi at the Pantheon. This refers to the confraternity of artists and musicians that was formed here by a 16th-century Canon of the church,
Desiderio da Segni, to ensure that worship was maintained in the chapel. The first members were, among others,
Antonio da Sangallo the younger,
Jacopo Meneghino,
Giovanni Mangone,
Zuccari,
Domenico Beccafumi and
Flaminio Vacca. The confraternity continued to draw members from the elite of Rome's artists and architects, and among later members we find
Bernini,
Cortona,
Algardi and many others. The institution still exists, and is now called the
Academia Ponteficia di Belle Arti (The Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts), based in the palace of the Cancelleria. The altar in the chapel is covered with false marble. On the altar is a statue of
St Joseph and the Holy Child by
Vincenzo de Rossi. To the sides are paintings (1661) by
Francesco Cozza, one of the Virtuosi:
Adoration of the Shepherds on left side and
Adoration of the Magi on right. The stucco relief on the left,
Dream of St Joseph is by
Paolo Benaglia, and the one on the right,
Rest during the flight from Egypt is by
Carlo Monaldi. On the vault are several 17th-century canvases, from left to right:
Cumean Sibyl by
Ludovico Gimignani; Moses by
Francesco Rosa;
Eternal Father by
Giovanni Peruzzini;
David by
Luigi Garzi and finally
Eritrean Sibyl by
Giovanni Andrea Carlone.
The second niche has a statue of
St Agnes, by
Vincenco Felici. The bust on the left is a portrait of
Baldassare Peruzzi, derived from a plaster portrait by
Giovanni Duprè. The tomb of King Umberto I and his wife Margherita di Savoia is in the next chapel. The chapel was originally dedicated to St Michael the Archangel, and then to St. Thomas the Apostle. The present design is by
Giuseppe Sacconi, completed after his death by his pupil
Guido Cirilli. The tomb consists of a slab of alabaster mounted in gilded bronze. The frieze has allegorical representations of
Generosity, by
Eugenio Maccagnani, and
Munificence, by
Arnaldo Zocchi. The royal tombs are maintained by the National Institute of Honour Guards to the Royal Tombs, founded in 1878. They also organize picket guards at the tombs. The altar with the royal arms is by Cirilli.
The third niche holds the mortal remains - his Ossa et cineres, "Bones and ashes", as the inscription on the sarcophagus says - of the great artist
Raphael. His fiancée,
Maria Bibbiena is buried to the right of his sarcophagus; she died before they could marry. The sarcophagus was given by
Pope Gregory XVI, and its insription reads ILLE HIC EST RAPHAEL TIMUIT QUO SOSPITE VINCI / RERUM MAGNA PARENS ET MORIENTE MORI, meaning "Here lies Raphael, by whom the mother of all things (Nature) feared to be overcome while he was living, and while he was dying, herself to die". The epigraph was written by
Pietro Bembo. The present arrangement is from 1811, designed by Antonio Munoz. The bust of Raphael (1833) is by
Giuseppe Fabris. The two plaques commemorate Maria Bibbiena and
Annibale Carracci. Behind the tomb is the statue known as the
Madonna del Sasso (Madonna of the Rock) so named because she rests one foot on a boulder. It was commissioned by Raphael and made by
Lorenzetto in 1524.
In the Chapel of the Crucifixion, the Roman brick wall is visible in the niches. The wooden crucifix on the altar is from the 15th century. On the left wall is a
Descent of the Holy Ghost (1790) by
Pietro Labruzi. On the right side is the low relief
Cardinal Consalvi presents to Pope Pius VII the five provinces restored to the Holy See (1824) made by the Danish sculptor
Bertel Thorvaldsen. The bust is a portrait of Cardinal Agostino Rivarola. The final niche on this side has a statue of
St. Rasius (
S. Erasio) (1727) by
Francesco Moderati.
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