The Pantheon

The Pantheon was begun in 27 BC by the statesman Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, probably as a building of the ordinary classical type, rectangular with a gabled roof supported by a colonnade on all sides. I t was completely rebuilt by the emperor Hadrian sometime between AD 118 and 128, with some alterations made in the early 3rd century by the emperors Lucius Septimius Severus and Caracalla. It is a circular building of concrete faced with brick, with a …

…eing thought as an awesome wonder, one of mirabilia, became a building seen as designed and constructed not by demons but by men, to be studied and utilized. Because it is in Rome, it has always been quite accessible; one can suggest the significance of this fact by asking what might have happened in architecture if the Pantheon or the Hagia Sophia had not stood as intact and accessible to Renaissance and later architects.