pantheon

Originally a temple for worshipping all the gods, such as that in ancient Rome, rebuilt by the emperor Hadrian between AD 118 and about 128, and still used as a church. In more recent times, the name has been used for a building where famous people are buried (as in the Panthéon, Paris).

The Pantheon in Rome has an enormous concrete dome spanning 43.2 m/142 ft.

Pantheon

A view looking up into the dome of the Pantheon, in Rome, Italy, which, although it dates from the ancient Roman period, is still in almost perfect condition. It was converted to a Christian church in AD 609, and, although it is seldom used for services today, this means that there is no admission charge.

Temple in the Campus Martius at Rome, now the church of Santa Maria della Rotunda. It was built, and most probably designed, by the emperor Hadrian on the site of an earlier temple dedicated to Mars and Venus by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in 27 BC. The name derives from a much later tradition that it was a temple ‘of all the gods’ (Greek panton ton theon).

The name is also applied to a famous church in Paris designed by Jacques Germain Soufflot in 1755.

Features The Pantheon in Rome is a circular building, the largest of its kind in antiquity; it is surmounted by a dome (43 m/141 ft interior diameter; 45 m/148 ft from floor to summit) and is entered by a portico of 16 Corinthian columns which may have formed part of Agrippa's edifice.

The gilt bronze tiles that originally covered the dome were removed to Constantinople at an early date; the bronze trusses and girders that carried the roof of the portico were melted down in the 17th century for use in Gianlorenzo Bernini's baldachino in St Peter's. The bronze rosettes and mouldings that once adorned the coffers have also disappeared, and some of the present interior decorations are of late Renaissance date.