In the 120s AD, the Roman Emperor Hadrian built the Pantheon, a temple that was dedicated to all the Roman deities, but was likewise meant to impress its mortal visitors.
One glance at the Pantheon’s facade would have convinced most ancient Romans that the structure was a typical rectilinear temple quite like the numerous sacred buildings found in the Roman Forum and scattered throughout the city, for as with most Roman temples, its porch is constructed in the post-and-lintel style with massive granite columns that support the roof.
The normality of the building’s facade does little to bely the wondrous structure inside, and so visitors - ancient to modern - who enter the temple get quite a surprise: the seemingly predictable post-and-lintel porch gives way to a circular interior some 30 feet in diameter that is capped by a dome rising 142 feet above the floor. The engineering of the structure alone is enough to blow the mind and in the second century AD it must have had that effect quite commonly for a dome of this proportion had never before been built (it weights 5000 tons).
Time had not mitigated the Pantheon’s effect. The number of tourists who enter its doors each and every day attest to the fact that its appeal has increased over the course of the past 1900 years. Like so many others, we love to visit the Pantheon. We even argue that the Pantheon should be visited each and every day. In part that’s because the light in the building changes and shifts constantly. An oculus at the center of the dome emits a disc of light that dances its way across the building over the course of each day. And, because the sun shifts in the sky over the course of the year, the trajectory of the disc of light changes through the seasons as well.
We enjoy the Pantheon most in the summer - the only time of year in which that ethereal disc of light falls onto the colored marble floor. And recently one of our many Pantheon-related dreams came true. We found ourselves alone in the building. We managed to linger as the guards chased the last visitors out the massive bronze doors. And we managed to snap an image of that perfect disc of light surrounded not by masses of admiring visitors, but only by the stillness and perfection of this oh-so-perfect ancient building.
See more Pantheon and Rome images @ our Rome With A View Photo Blog and buy Pantheon greeting cards and postcards @ the Rome With A View Store.
