It is generally believed that the original building was connected with the cult of the gens Julia<\/em> and, in particular, with the worship of Venus Genetrix and the deified Julius Caesar, together with other deities. The posthumous deification of Caesar, promoted by Augustus, was part of a Hellenistic tradition that nevertheless acquired distinctive Roman characteristics. For the Romans of the period, religion was deeply intertwined with public and political life: securing the favor of the gods was considered essential to the prosperity of the state.<\/p>\n In this sense, the pax deorum<\/em> represented the proper relationship between Rome and the gods. Through rituals, sacrifices, and religious practices, the Roman community sought to maintain harmony with the divine world and avoid jeopardizing Rome\u2019s destiny.<\/p>\n [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n The inscription on the entablature \u2014 Marcus Agrippa Luci filius consul tertium fecit<\/em> (\u201cMarcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, consul for the third time, built this\u201d) \u2014 refers to an earlier version of the building, commissioned by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Augustus\u2019 close associate, around 27\u201325 BC. After the victory over Antony and Cleopatra, Agrippa also held the office of aedile and was responsible for numerous public works. Among them was the construction of the Aqua Virgo, the aqueduct that still supplies some of Rome\u2019s most famous fountains, including the Trevi Fountain.<\/p>\n The temple was severely damaged by a fire in AD 80 and was subsequently rebuilt under Domitian. Another fire, around AD 110, made a second reconstruction necessary, carried out under the emperor Hadrian between AD 118 and 125. This is the building we know today. Hadrian chose to preserve Agrippa\u2019s inscription on the entablature, following a practice that helped connect the monument with its earlier history and avoided directly emphasizing his own intervention. This is particularly significant given that Hadrian, in many of his building projects, chose not to have his own name prominently displayed on structures he commissioned or restored.<\/p>\n As mentioned above, the oculus<\/em>, the great central opening in the dome, establishes a direct relationship between the interior of the building and the sky. Sunlight enters the rotunda and moves across its surfaces throughout the day, constantly transforming the interior space. The opening can also be interpreted symbolically as a link between the earthly and celestial realms, within the Roman religious context, which was characterized by the presence and coexistence of numerous cults.<\/p>\n Roman religion was capable of incorporating deities and religious practices from conquered territories, provided that they did not conflict with public order and the traditional religious obligations of the state. This should not, however, be understood as \u201ctolerance\u201d in the modern sense: the relationship between religion, politics, and public authority remained extremely close.<\/p>\n Whether the oculus<\/em> represented an additional reference to the Sun or primarily responded to architectural and symbolic requirements remains a matter of scholarly debate. In any case, the rotunda displays extraordinary proportions: the diameter of the interior space is almost exactly equal to its height, so that an imaginary sphere could be perfectly inscribed within the building.<\/p>\n But the Pantheon\u2019s exceptional characteristics certainly do not end there.<\/p>\n [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The dome, with an internal diameter of approximately 43.3 metres, is one of the largest domes ever built in unreinforced concrete and remains a masterpiece of Roman engineering. Its construction also relied on a progressive reduction in the thickness and weight of the material: the concrete used in the upper sections contains increasingly lightweight aggregates, eventually incorporating particularly light volcanic materials near the oculus<\/em>. The thickness of the dome decreases from more than six metres at the base to approximately one and a half metres near the top.<\/p>\n We have no surviving ancient documents describing in detail the system used to support the dome during construction. It is likely that a large wooden centering structure was employed \u2014 a temporary framework capable of supporting the concrete until it had fully set.<\/p>\n The dome was originally decorated with architectural elements on its interior, while the exterior was probably covered with tiles and metal sheets. Over the centuries, numerous metal elements were removed and reused elsewhere. It is therefore difficult to reconstruct with certainty the original appearance of the entire decorative scheme.<\/p>\n The effect produced by the Pantheon must nevertheless have been extraordinary. The building originally stood within a much larger monumental complex than the one we can perceive today, with a square and a monumental approach framed by colonnaded porticoes. Visitors would thus have approached a building designed to dominate its urban surroundings visually.<\/p>\n Inside, the surface of the dome is divided into five concentric rings of coffers, progressively smaller towards the oculus<\/em>. Besides visually lightening the structure, this arrangement enhances the perception of depth and contributes to the extraordinary harmony of the proportions of the interior.<\/p>\n In the second part, we will explore the long and troubled transition from Roman temple to Christian church.<\/p>\n [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The early transformation to the Christian basilica allowed the Pantheon to survive as no other monument<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18735,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[152,116,2,100,106],"tags":[313,314,315,316,317,318,319,311,320,321,322,323,324,325,326,146,131,109,196],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelcolumbia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18765"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelcolumbia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelcolumbia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelcolumbia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelcolumbia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18765"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/hotelcolumbia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19646,"href":"https:\/\/hotelcolumbia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18765\/revisions\/19646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelcolumbia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelcolumbia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelcolumbia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelcolumbia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hotel](\"http:\/\/hotelcolumbia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/pantheon-rome-wallpaper-4.jpg\")
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