Week 7 Class 225

During our scavenger hunt at the Piazza Navona, we needed to search for a piece of art at the Pantheon. When we came up on the Pantheon, I felt the emotion of shock; I expected the building to be surrounded by grass and plants and space. To my disappointment, the Pantheon is surrounded by blacktop and buildings. In researching the Pantheon, I discovered that its history, unfortunately, is of pillage and destruction.

The Blue Guide: Rome explains that the Pantheon “was built during the Third consulate of Agrippa to commemorate the victory of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium.” (259) The history of the structure is a on the sad side; or maybe, it is an indication that the treatment of Antony and Cleopatra. Anyway, the Pantheon suffered two fires. The first fire only damaged the Pantheon in AD80; Domitian, later, restored the building. In 110, the structure was hit by lightening and completely destroyed by another fire. After examination of the brick stamps, archeologist concluded that the existing structure is not that of Agrippa. They feel this new temple is the design of Hadrian and he rebuilt it on a larger scale with different lines. (259) Later, in 609, Boniface IV consecrated the temple as a Christian church after he received it from the Byzantine emperor Phocas. Boniface dedicated the church to Santa Maria ad Martyre, according to Blue Guide. (260)
According to the Blue Guide, a legend saying that after the consecration of the Pantheon, “28 wagonloads of martyrs’ bones had been transferred here from the catacombs.” (260). It is also believed that during “a 12-day visit”, Constans II “robbed the temple of what the Goths had left and in particular stripped off the gilded roof-tiles,” And they were most likely bronze. (260) The Pantheon also served as a fortress for the Popes during aristocratic family struggles. (260)

According to Art through the Ages, “Giovanni Pannini’s paintings of the interior of the Pantheon exhibits better than any photograph one can see the unity and scale of design, the simplicity of its relationships, and its breath-taking grandeur. Through various studies, architects believe the form of space enclosed is almost accidentally determined by the placement of the solids, which do not so much shape as interrupt it.” (222)