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Divo Adriano
Pantheon
Pantheon: (Italian) bibliography
Pantheon: the dome
Pantheon, restaurations
Poseidonion
Pantheon architecture
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The Pantheon was placed in axis with the pre-existing edifices of the central section of the Campus Martius, according to the roman usage of situating their own monuments more or less in rectilinear way between them. South of the Panteon, are extended the Thermae of Agrippa, while those of Nero, built in 60 d.c. follow the western side of its external court. Along the other side of the court, Adrian ordered that a temple be built for the stepmother Matidia. To the north of this, leaning on the eastern side of the rotonda, there were the Saepta Julia, a large square with archades and with the major axis parallel with the one of the Pantheon which was extending to the south for about 300 meters so as to be side by side with the east side of the Thermae of Agrippa.
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The unique remains of this huge construction are articulated on the side of the rotonda.
The paved Pantheon court probably extended for about 90 or 100 metres north of the porch so as to reach the church of the Maddalena.
The exact appearance of this court is not well known, but it was supposed that it was surrounded with columns on three sides and it had an entrance similar to propyleae which led to a triumphal arch situated at the centre of the rectangular space.
Some remains found during the excavations have shown parts of the pavement and at a raised level of 1.20m, the bases of the columns and the fragments of the columns themselves. These had a one metre diametre and they were of grey granite as those of the temple porch, which was reached by five big marble steps placed on a platform of 4.46 m as it was the use of the roman templar architecture.
The temple visual was then from the lower part towards the higher, and this gave it a slimmer appearence than the one which already the long columns conferred to it. The octastyle facade shows all monolithic columns of the same measure (of 1,50-1,60 m. in diametre) placed in such a manner as to constitute three naves alligned to the south towards the forepart.
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The space between the columns is of two diametres between the lateral ones and of two and one third between the central ones. Originally the frontal columns were all of grey granite and the four, in second and third line, originated from Egypt, of a reddish colour. All have the entasi and all are deprived of grooves. The capitals of white marble which sustain the trablation are of corinthian style and of delicate and refine workmanship : unfortunately during the centuries they have lost much of their ancient splendour.
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Once, the trablation and the outer columns supported a bronze ceiling, removed then by Urbano VIII : now, remains to be seen the wooden girders which support the slim roof. Often it was said that the bronze covered only the rafters and that, in ancient times, the appearence of the roof of the porch could not be different from the actual one. But the enormous amount of that material which was used by the pope's carpenters exclude this possibility. However, in any case, the three naves of the porch were originally coverd with barrel vaults, often present in the architecture of that time. Now the interior girders support square stone pilasters and concrete arches, three for each side of the central nave. This larger one, leads to the entrance of the rotonda, while the lateral ones end with two apses in which, it is probable that there were a statue of Augustus and one of Agrippa.
The pediment, besides the inscription of Adrian and the one of Settimus Severus and Caracalla, had a decoration with bronze reliefs of which are remaining the holes through which it was fixed to the wall. It represented Jupiter on a quadrille while fulminating the giants in rebellion against him, with some of them trampled down by horses.
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They were also of bronze the pedestals which decorated the angles of the tympanum.
The pavement of the porch, many times restored, is of white marble and of dark grey granit : the two materials alternated shaping squares, circles and elipses. Between the porch and the cella is interposed the forepart : in ancient time it was covered, in an out, with white marble slabs. Some traces remain, out of the profiles of pilasters with square corinthian capitals as support of a sham trabeation which joins the true one of the porch. The wooden door covered with bronze, at the bottom of the central nave, closes the sole entrance still existing of the rotonda. It is one of the three ancient doors of Rome still preserved altogether with the one of the temple of Romulus in the Roman forum and the one of the Curia, now in the Lateranen baptistery. It is 6.50 m. high , with two shutters, divided in cornices, vertically fixed into the lintel and on the african marble threshold.
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On the side of the door restaured at the time of Pius VI (1559-1585) there were two pilasters grooved with bronze, engaged in the marmorean cornice, and over, a window with a grating to favour ventilation in the interior rooms : the whole ends up with a barrel vault resting on the fragment of a trabeation, with five lacunars which seem to want to anticipate the sight of the cupola, in the interior. Here in correspondence of the entrance, is found also a space with a barrel vault, which inserts itself in strict correspondence with the apse which opens frontally to it and to the semicircular niches which articulate the remaining two cardinal points.
Between these three semicircular spaces and the entrance there are four other niches, two by part, but now rectangular. To shield the niches there are two corinthian columns which are grooved, and in ancient yellow of Numidia, with intercolumns of two diametre as the lateral one of the porch. Between exterior and interior there is always a narrow connection as it is shown by the grey pilastres placed at the angles of the niches as those of the entrance portal.
The apsis on the contrary does not present the two columns which in the niches scan the space, neither the two angular pilastres, but two columns instead at their place, slightly placed forward as regards the level of the curved wall of the rotonda. An ulterior scan of the walls is due, besides the niches to the presence of eight niches places between these, lightly protrading, with podium lateral columns and tympanum : these last ones are alternately curved or triangular, depending if they frame semicircular or rectangular niches. The columns are of antique yellow, the grooved ones, of porphiry, the smooth, except four of grey granite, substituted in the renaissance by as many in porphiro. In the third kiosk, on the left, the remains of Raphael the Magnificent distych of Bembo, with also a Madonna of Lorenzetto (1524).
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The surface of the podium and the niches, as the one of the attic, was, originally covered with marble, with designs of circles and squares. As in the kiosks, much has been lost, and there are many places where the plaster, painted as if it were colored marble, ha substituted the original stones.
"The basement of the attic, in the interior of the rotunda was in purple with leases and mouldings of white marble ; the pilastres were of porphiry with bases and capitals of ancient yellow. The pilastres rested on a plinth which went round the temple with bastion of porphyry between it and the bases. The show-cases of the windows with their frames were of purple and their frieze of serpentine. The architrave of the order was adorned with a marble cyma under which there was an astragal with a superior and inferior bundle of purple and with a fascia of serpentine. The frieze was of an ancient yellow, the cornice still existing was of white marble. The interpilastres made of facia of purple and serpentine and panels of ancien yellow, porphyry and purple. Of this one only a cornice is remaining" (from : C. Maes).
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All this has been altered by different interventions during the course of centuries: the attic has nearly completely lost the marble covering, the panels lines up by pilastre strips which alternated with the fourteen niches : these last ones, true and proper blind windows did not have the tympanums which now adorn them in an awkward manner according to the opinion of Nibby (1838). A section of stucco plaster of the eighteen century has been removed and substituted with a reproduction of the original decoration. The floor of the rotonda is paved with squares and circles within squares, of different couloured varieties of granite, marble, and porphyry. This wire netting is aligned with the principle north-south direction of the time and passes by the centre of the edifice. The floor is not the original one which was made again in 1873 but the impression is the one of the Adrian period. The circles and squares are placed in relation in such a way that they appear continuous lines of both only along the diagonals. At the centre of all, there is a circle and in consequence, there are alternating lines of circles and squares, along the main axis and the transversal ones, and lines of circles which join, from the right of the entrance the first niche with the fourth, and the third with the sixth, or the four rectangular niches.
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