Pantheon

The Pantheon, from the Greek "temple of all the Gods", is situated in Rome.

It is, in fact, dedicated to all the Gods or, even better, to the seven planetary divinities (Sun, Moon, Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars).

It is surely the most beautiful building remaining from antique Rome.

The first Pantheon was constructed between the 27th and the 25th centuries a.C. by Marco Vipsanio Agrippa, but under the reign of Adriano, the building was totally reconstructed.

The building is made up of a pronaos connected to a large, round, brickwork portico by means of an intermediate, rectangular structure.

The inside is made up of a rotunda covered by a dome which also hosts an 18th century painting by Giovanni Paolo Pannini. With regard to the dome, it is decorated on the inside by sunken panels in five rows of twenty-eight.

This is the first case of a Pagan temple converted to Christian use, and this is why it has remained intact. The Pantheon was also used as a tomb. In fact, several artists are burried there: Raffaello Sanzio, and Annibale Carracci, the architect Baldassarre Peruzzi, the musician Arcangelo Corelli, and one can also find the tombs of Vittorio Emanuele II, his wife Margherita, and his son Umberto I.