*Not to be confused with the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis in Greece.
The Pantheon 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.
The building is circular with a portico of large
granite Corinthian columns (eight in the first rank and two groups of four
behind) under a pediment. A rectangular vestibule links the porch to the
rotunda, which is under a coffered concrete dome, with a central opening
(oculus) to the sky.
The height to the oculus and the diameter of the interior
circle are the same, 142 feet, so the whole interior would fit exactly within
a cube (also, the interior could house a sphere 142 feet. The dome weighs
4,999 tons and its thickness varies from 21 feet at the base of the dome to
3.9 feet around the oculus.
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Until
1881, the Pantheon’s dome was the largest dome in the world. It is, to this
day, still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world.
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| The coffered dome has a central oculus as the main source of natural light |
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| View of the Pantheon in Rome showing the dome. |
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| Cross-section of the Pantheon showing how a 142-foot sphere would fit in its dome. |
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