Pantheon

Timeline

1. 27 BC

   First Pantheon built

   Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, the close associate of Emperor Augustus, built the original temple to all the gods as part of his architectural complex in the Campus Martius.

2. AD 80

   First building lost

   The original Pantheon was destroyed in a major fire during the reign of Emperor Titus, and further lightning damage was recorded under Emperor Trajan around AD 110.

3. AD 118-128

   Hadrian's reconstruction

   The circular dome building visible today was rebuilt under Emperor Hadrian, with the facade still bearing the re-carved name of the original builder Agrippa.

4. c. AD 203

   Severan restoration

   Substantial repairs took place under the joint reigns of Emperor Septimius Severus and Emperor Caracalla, with an additional restoration inscription added to the architrave.

5. AD 609

   Consecration as a church

   Pope Boniface IV consecrated the building as Santa Maria ad Martyres (St. Mary and the Martyrs), the first formally recorded conversion of a pagan temple into a Christian church.

6. AD 663

   Byzantine looting

   Byzantine emperor Constans II stripped the gilded bronze tiles from the exterior of the dome and shipped them away from Rome toward Constantinople.

7. 1520

   Raphael laid to rest

   The Renaissance master Raphael Sanzio died at age 37 and, by his own wish, was buried inside the Pantheon, the first great artist to be honoured this way.

8. 1626

   Barberini stripping

   Pope Urban VIII (Barberini) melted down the portico's bronze beams for Bernini's baldachin in St. Peter's Basilica and for cannons at Castel Sant'Angelo.

9. 1878

   Royal mausoleum

   King Vittorio Emanuele II, first king of unified Italy, was buried in the Pantheon, formally turning it into the official royal mausoleum of the House of Savoy.

10. 1900

    Umberto I interred

    King Umberto I, recently assassinated in Monza, was buried in the Pantheon, joining his father as a permanent tomb of the Savoy dynasty inside the rotunda.

11. 1980

    World Heritage inscription

    The Pantheon was inscribed as a component of UNESCO's 'Historic Centre of Rome, the Properties of the Holy See and San Paolo Fuori le Mura' World Heritage Site.

12. 2024

    Paid admission introduced

    Italy's Ministry of Culture ended nearly two millennia of free entry and introduced an admission fee of about 5 euros, with proceeds funding ongoing conservation.

Detailed History

The history of the Pantheon begins in 27 BC, when Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, a close associate of Emperor Augustus, built the first temple on the site. The original was a traditional rectangular plan, forming part of a larger complex in the Campus Martius (the Field of Mars) that commemorated victory at the Battle of Actium, alongside the Baths of Agrippa and the Basilica of Neptune. That structure was destroyed in a major fire during the reign of Emperor Titus around AD 80, and later damaged by lightning under Emperor Trajan around AD 110. The circular, dome-crowned building visible today was rebuilt under Emperor Hadrian, who began work around AD 118 and consecrated the temple around AD 128. Despite being a new construction, Hadrian had Agrippa's original inscription re-carved on the pediment — public humility very unusual for a Roman emperor. Repairs followed around AD 203 under the joint reigns of Septimius Severus and Caracalla, with an additional inscription added to the architrave. While most pagan temples were destroyed or stripped after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Pantheon was spared. In AD 608 Pope Boniface IV received the building from the Byzantine emperor Phocas, and in the following year consecrated it as Santa Maria ad Martyres (St. Mary and the Martyrs) — the first formally recorded conversion of a pagan temple into a Christian church. In AD 663 Byzantine emperor Constans II stripped the gilded bronze tiles from the dome's exterior and shipped them away. In the 17th century Pope Urban VIII of the Barberini family melted down the portico's bronze beams for Bernini's baldachin in St. Peter's Basilica and for cannons at Castel Sant'Angelo, prompting the famous Roman quip: 'What the barbarians did not do, the Barberini did.' During the Renaissance the Pantheon became the burial place of the painter Raphael Sanzio in 1520, and later of artists such as Annibale Carracci and the composer Arcangelo Corelli. After Italian unification it became a royal mausoleum with the burials of King Vittorio Emanuele II in 1878 and King Umberto I in 1900. Today the Pantheon is administered by Italy's Ministry of Culture as state property, welcoming roughly nine million visitors a year — one of the most iconic monuments in the world.

Cultural Significance

The Pantheon is a core component of the UNESCO World Heritage Site 'Historic Centre of Rome, the Properties of the Holy See in that City Enjoying Extraterritorial Rights and San Paolo Fuori le Mura,' first inscribed in 1980 and extended in 1990. It is registered as part of the broader ensemble of ancient Roman and Papal heritage rather than as a standalone monument, and is regarded as one of the defining structures of antiquity, ranked alongside the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Baths of Caracalla. Within Italy it is recognized as a national cultural heritage monument; it remained freely accessible under state ownership for nearly two millennia, but following visitor-flow restrictions from 2023 and the formal introduction of paid admission in 2024 a roughly 5-euro ticket is now required. Its cultural influence is immeasurable, having served as a prototype for dome architecture from the Renaissance to Neoclassicism. It is the acknowledged ancestor of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence by Filippo Brunelleschi, St. Paul's Cathedral in London by Christopher Wren, the United States Capitol in Washington D.C., and the Panthéon in Paris (formerly the church of Sainte-Geneviève). In literature, Lord Byron praised it as 'the most noble of beauty's ruins,' and on screen it has appeared in films from 'Roman Holiday' (1953) to 'John Wick: Chapter 2' (2017).

Architectural Details

The Pantheon's construction is widely considered the apex of ancient Roman engineering. A 4.5-meter-deep foundation of Roman concrete (opus caementicium) supports a circular drum 43.2 meters across, on which sits a hemispherical, unreinforced concrete dome. The wall reaches 6 meters thick at the base, and the dome's weight is channelled through eight massive piers built into that wall. The dome itself tapers from about 6 meters thick at the springing to roughly 1.5 meters at the top, with progressively lighter aggregates — tufa near the bottom, pumice near the crown — deliberately mixed so that the entire shell weighs only around 5,000 tons. Inside, the coffered ceiling forms a geometric grid of five rings of 28 panels each, a celebrated ancient solution combining weight reduction with sublime ornament. The central oculus, 8.7 meters across, is the dome's single opening; the marble floor is slightly dished toward the center and 22 small drains carry away the rain. The portico is supported by 16 monolithic granite columns about 12.5 meters tall, in two rows of eight. Quarried at Aswan and at Mons Claudianus in Egypt, each column weighs roughly 60 tons — a testament to Roman transport. Interior and exterior were once clad in marble and bronze, most of which was stripped in the Middle Ages.