In the Campus Martius, where Rome’s ancient field of war once lay, stands a building that has outlasted empire and time itself. The Pantheon was first raised by Marcus Agrippa around 27-25 B.C., though the structure you see today is the work of Emperor Hadrian, completed after A.D. 126. Its name, ‘all gods’, hints at its original purpose: a temple to the planetary deities, their celestial order mirrored in the great coffered dome above. That dome remains the world’s largest unreinforced concrete span, its oculus open to the sky, letting in rain and light. In A.D. 609, the building was consecrated as a Christian church, S. Maria ad Martyres, a transformation that saved it from the spoliation that befell so many pagan monuments. The result is a rare survival, a Roman temple still whole, still used, still offering that dizzying, silent astonishment of a space designed to hold the heavens.
Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.
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