When was the Pantheon in Rome constructed?
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In order to avoid the difficulty of giving an exhaustive list of deities when devoting a temple or sacred building, a structure explicitly dedicated to "all deities" also came to be referred to as a "Pantheon". The best known of such structures is the Pantheon of Rome, first built between the years 27 BCE and 14 CE. The building standing today was constructed on the same site around 126 CE. It was dedicated to "all gods" as a gesture embracing the religious syncretism in the increasingly multicultural Roman Empire, with subjects worshipping gods from many cultures and traditions. The building was later renovated for use as a Christian church in 609 under Pope Boniface IV.
Pantheon (religion)
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The Pantheon (, ; , from Greek "Pantheion", "[temple] of all the gods") is a former Roman temple, now a church, in Rome, Italy, on the site of an earlier temple commissioned by Marcus Agrippa during the reign of Augustus (27 BC – 14 AD). It was completed by the emperor Hadrian and probably dedicated about 126 AD. Its date of construction is uncertain, because Hadrian chose not to inscribe the new temple but rather to retain the inscription of Agrippa's older temple, which had burned down.
Pantheon, Rome
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Mark Wilson Jones has attempted to explain the design adjustments carried out in relating the porch to the dome, arguing that the Pantheon's porch was originally designed for monolithic granite columns with shafts 50 Roman feet tall (weighing about 100 tons) and capitals 10 Roman feet tall in the Corinthian style. The taller porch would have hidden the second pediment visible on the intermediate block. Instead, after the intended columns failed to arrive, the builders made many awkward adjustments in order to use shafts 40 Roman feet tall and capitals eight Roman feet tall. This substitution was probably a result of logistical difficulties at some stage in the construction. Alternatively, it has also been argued that the scale of the portico related to the urban design of the space in front of the temple. The grey granite columns that were actually used in the Pantheon's pronaos were quarried in Egypt at Mons Claudianus in the eastern mountains. Each was tall, in diameter, and 60 tons in weight. These were dragged more than from the quarry to the river on wooden sledges. They were floated by barge down the Nile River when the water level was high during the spring floods, and then transferred to vessels to cross the Mediterranean Sea to the Roman port of Ostia. There, they were transferred back onto barges and pulled up the Tiber River to Rome. After being unloaded near the Mausoleum of Augustus, the site of the Pantheon was still about 700 metres away. Thus, it was necessary to either drag them or to move them on rollers to the construction site.
Pantheon, Rome
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The only passages referring to the decoration of the Agrippan Pantheon written by an eyewitness are in Pliny's "Natural History". From him we know that "the capitals, too, of the pillars, which were placed by M. Agrippa in the Pantheon, are made of Syracusan bronze", that "the Pantheon of Agrippa has been decorated by Diogenes of Athens, and the Caryatides, by him, which form the columns of that temple, are looked upon as masterpieces of excellence: the same, too, with the statues that are placed upon the roof," and that one of Cleopatra's pearls was cut in half so that each half "might serve as pendants for the ears of Venus, in the Pantheon at Rome".
Pantheon, Rome
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The Augustan Pantheon was destroyed along with other buildings in a huge fire in the year 80 AD. Domitian rebuilt the Pantheon, which was burnt again in 110 AD.
Pantheon, Rome
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Since the Renaissance the Pantheon has been the site of several important burials. 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. Filippo Brunelleschi, among other architects, looked to the Pantheon as inspiration for their works.
Pantheon, Rome
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On 23 July 1725, the Pantheon was established as Cardinal-deaconry of S. Maria ad Martyres, i.e. a titular church for a cardinal-deacon.
Pantheon, Rome
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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 appears to be the only near-contemporaneous writer to mention the Pantheon. Even by the year 200, there was uncertainty about the origin of the building and its purpose:
Pantheon, Rome
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The building's consecration as a church saved it from the abandonment, destruction, and the worst of the spoliation that befell the majority of ancient Rome's buildings during the early medieval period. However, 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 [of the blessed Mary], which at one time was called the Pantheon, and had been founded in honour 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."
Pantheon, Rome
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The Pantheon was a place of public entertainment on the south side of Oxford Street, London, England. It was designed by James Wyatt and opened in 1772. The main rotunda was one of the largest rooms built in England up to that time and had a central dome somewhat reminiscent of the celebrated Pantheon in Rome. It was built as a set of winter assembly rooms and later briefly converted into a theatre. Before being demolished in 1937, it was a bazaar and a wine merchant's show room for over a hundred years. Marks and Spencer's "Oxford Street Pantheon" branch, at 173 Oxford Street now occupies the site.
Pantheon, London