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ANTICHE & MEDIEVAL
Ancient
In the aftermath of the Battle of Actium (31 BC), Marcus Agrippa built and dedicated the original Pantheon during his third consulship (27 BC).[7] Located in the Campus Martius, at the time of its construction, the area of the Pantheon was on the outskirts of Rome, and the area had a rural appearance. Under the Roman Republic the Campus Martius had served as a gathering place for elections and the army. However, under Augustus and the new Principate both were deemed to be unnecessary.[8]
The construction of the Pantheon was part of a program of construction that was undertaken by Augustus Caesar and his supporters. They built more than twenty structures on the Campus Martius, including the Baths of Agrippa and the Saepta Julia.[9] It had long been thought that the current building was built by Agrippa, with later alterations undertaken, and this was in part due to the inscription on the front of the temple.[10] The inscription across the front of the Pantheon says, M.AGRIPPA.L.F.COS.TERTIUM.FECIT, meaning "Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, having been consul three times, built it."[11] However, archaeological excavations have shown that the Pantheon of Agrippa had been completely destroyed, and Emperor Hadrian was responsible for rebuilding the Pantheon on the site of Agrippa's original temple.[12] There had been two earlier buildings on the same spot, for which the new Pantheon was a replacement.[13]
The form of Agrippa's Pantheon is debated.[7] As a result of excavations in the late 19th century, archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani concluded that Agrippa's Pantheon was oriented so that it faced south, in contrast with the current layout that faces northwards, and that it had a shortened T-shaped plan with the entrance at the base of the "T". This description was widely accepted until the late 20th century. However, more recent archaeological diggings suggest that the building might have taken a different form. Agrippa's Pantheon might have had a circular form with a triangular porch, and it might have also faced north, much like the later rebuildings.[14]
The Augustan Pantheon was destroyed along with other buildings in a huge fire in 80 AD. Domitian rebuilt the Pantheon, which burned again in 110 AD.[15] Not long after the second fire, construction started again, according to a recent re-evaluation of the bricks dated with manufacturer stamps.[16] Therefore, the design of the building should not be credited to Hadrian or his architects. Instead, the design of the existent building might belong to Trajan's architect Apollodorus of Damascus.[16] The degree to which the decorative scheme should be credited to Hadrian's architects is uncertain. Finished by Hadrian but not claimed as one of his works, it used the text of the original inscription on the new facade, a common practice in Hadrian's rebuilding projects all over Rome, the only building on which Hadrian put his own name was the Temple to the Deified Trajan.[17] How the building was actually used is not known.
Cassius Dio, a Graeco-Roman senator, consul and author of a comprehensive History of Rome, writing approximately 75 years after the Pantheon's reconstruction, mistakenly attributed the domed building to Agrippa rather than Hadrian. Dio appears to be the only near contemporaneous writer to mention the Pantheon. Even by the year 200, there was uncertainty about the origin of the building and its purpose:
Agrippa finished the construction of the building called the Pantheon. It has this name, perhaps because it received among the images which decorated it the statues of many gods, including Mars and Venus; but my own opinion of the name is that, because of its vaulted roof, it resembles the heavens.—Cassius Dio History of Rome 53.27.2
The building was repaired by Septimius Severus and Caracalla in 202 AD, for which there is another, smaller inscription. This inscription reads "pantheum vetustate corruptum cum omni cultu restituerunt" ('with every refinement they restored the Pantheon worn by age').
Medieval
In 609, the Byzantine emperor Phocas gave the building to Pope Boniface IV, who converted it into a Christian church and consecrated it to Sancta Maria ad Martyres, now known as Santa Maria dei Martiri: "Another Pope, Boniface, asked the same [Emperor Phocas, in Constantinople] to order that in the old temple called the Pantheon, after the pagan filth was removed, a church should be made, to the holy virgin Mary and all the martyrs, so that the commemoration of the saints would take place henceforth where not gods but demons were formerly worshiped."[18]
The building's consecration as a church saved it from the abandonment, destruction, and the worst of the spoliation that befell the majority of ancient Rome's buildings during the early medieval period. Paul the Deacon records the spoliation of the building by the Emperor Constans II, who visited Rome in July 663:
Remaining at Rome twelve days he pulled down everything that in ancient times had been made of metal for the ornament of the city, to such an extent that he even stripped off the roof of the church [of the blessed Mary], which at one time was called the Pantheon, and had been founded in honor of all the gods and was now by the consent of the former rulers the place of all the martyrs; and he took away from there the bronze tiles and sent them with all the other ornaments to Constantinople.
Much fine external marble has been removed over the centuries, and there are capitals from some of the pilasters in the British Museum. Two columns were swallowed up in the medieval buildings that abutted the Pantheon on the east and were lost. In the early seventeenth century, Urban VIII Barberini tore away the bronze ceiling of the portico, and replaced the medieval campanile with the famous twin towers built by Bernini, which were not removed until the late nineteenth century.[19] The only other loss has been the external sculptures, which adorned the pediment above Agrippa's inscription. The marble interior has largely survived, although with extensive restoration.
