#pantheon
OFALL THE ROMAN monuments in the world, the Pantheon must be
the best preserved. This vast, 2,000-years-old concrete dome, with its 20-tonne
bronze doors and granite colonnaded entrance, still hs the svelte looks of a
building a quarter of its age. This is all despite – or perhaps because of – it
being one of the most contested sites in the city. It was built in 27 BC by
Emperor Marcus Agrippa as a tribute to the gods and, over the course of its
lifetime, the Pantheon has been dismantled and rebuilt, plundered, become a
Catholic basilica and been converted into a royal burial ground.
Today it is an amalgamation of all of the above – part
museum, par Catholic church, part architectural wonder. In particular, the
gargantuan unsupported concrete dome still defies belief. The concrete of the
dome, made using volcanic ash to make it light, was poured on using moulds and
scaffold, and carefully crafted so as to be thinner at the top, ensuring that
the base of the dome can support the rest. It is still the largest unreinforced
concrete dome on Earth.
Site manager Valentina Brasiello compares the Pantheon to a
time capsule, a place where you can find elements of virtually every aspect of
Italian history. There’s the classical design of the building, with its
incredible symmetry. ‘It was supposed to evoke the Earth, surrounded by the
seven gods of the planets, with the oculus (roof window) connecting you to the
heavens,’ explains Valentina. ‘Standing in here was like being at the centre of
the universe.’
On the right-hand side of the altar stands what appears to
be a statue of Jesus’s grandmother, St Anne, and her daughter, the young Virgin
Mary. But close inspection reveals that it was originally crated as a classical
sculpture of a very male Pontius Maximus in a toga, selecting one of the
Catholic church when it took over the building in the 7th century.
On the other side of the altar lies the tomb of Raphael, the
live-fast-die-young lothario artist, who passed away in his prime at 37,
allegedly due to having too much sex with a baker’s daughter while off-duty
from painting frescoes in the Vatican .finally, in the next chapel lies the
graves of the second Italian king, Umberto I, and his wife Margherita, after
whom the cheese-and-tomato pizza was named.
Look out for the 22 almost-invisible holes in the floor of
the Pantheon, directly beneath the oculus – they are the discreet drainage
points that take care of any rainwater that falls through the roof.
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