The Pantheon of Ancient Rome is one of my favorite buildings because its architecture is so distinct.
The late second-century historian Cassius Dio attributed the dedication of the temple to “all the Gods,” but he was speculating — ‘pantheus” might have referred to one deity (albeit a superlative one). Why is that important? Well, in the second century, when Hadrian (or his predecessor Trajan) rebuilt the Pantheon, it became somewhat trendy to consider one of the Gods the supreme, or even merge the panoply of many divine beings into one — it was when the Mystery Cults were growing in popularity, with Christianity echoing some of their attributes.
But Hadrian wasn’t the original commissioner of this temple. That honor went to Augustus’ son-in-law, who lived a century earlier. You can see the original dedication in the first picture.
The architecture of the Pantheon is unique and wonderful — still today it is the largest unreinforced concrete dome. The dome is made up of five rings of sunken panels (called coffers), each of twenty eight sections, with every higher ring of smaller sections. As you move higher up, the builders used ever lighter types of concrete. Then too, there is the famous “oculus” or “eye” — a circular window to the heavens. The center of the temple is also the central point of space in the building, (so that it would fit a perfect circle), and the empty space of the oculus also took weight off the dome.
The 28 sunken panels might have resonated with some symbolic meaning, perhaps the lunar cycle. The interior circular space might have represented the heavens. The oculus casts a sunbeam throughout the day which is like a reverse sun dial.
All sorts of buildings, from the Renaissance and after, borrowed ideas from the architectural space of the Pantheon.
(Oh. And Pliny the Elder also said that one of Cleopatra’s pearl earrings had furnished the jewelry for a statue of Venus, now lost, in the original temple.)
Source(s): Wikipedia, smart history.org, my modern met “9 facts about the Pantheon”
