DAY 8: The Pantheon 2

09.07.2014

My first stop today was again the Pantheon. This time I came from the front with a big ice cream. I sat on the side of the entrance in a playful area with big pieces of marble placed randomly, suggesting that people could sit on them and finish their ice creams before entering the holy interior. As I made myself comfortable some children as well started running around and climbing the stones. An angry guard then came along and shouted at all of us. He said something about “gelato” (ice cream) and “national treasure” and me being a coward. I understand I was sitting in an area of immense archaeological or national importance and I should move from there. Only then I spotted signs prohibiting access to the narrow site.

The Pantheon can be seen as a great paradox, an epic creature laughing in face to the modern struggle of Italian society to elevate itself above itself. A worthless triangular site with a few stones is seen as a place of extraordinary value. The one who steps in, is committing a crime against humanity, as if you are walking over the canvas on which da Vinci painted La Gioconda.

The first version of Pantheon was built by Marcus Agrippa in 19BC, one of the greatest Romans of all times, the right hand of Roman Emperor Octavius Augustus. The history remembers him as a driving force behind many public buildings and pieces of infrastructure by which the Emperor Augustus was later referred as the man who “found Rome the city of brick but left it the city of marble”. Since then, the Pantheon was rebuilt by Emperor Hadrian in 126AD. The same structure stands since then with small changes of its interior, exterior and surroundings. With the rise of Christianity, the temple of all gods was transformed into a church. The Pantheon became a tomb for important Romans including the painter Raphael. It has strangely been chosen by the pompous Italian ruler Victor Emanuel II as his resting place in the end of 19^th century. In the 20^th century, it was admired by Mussolini who gave a private tour of the building to Adolf Hitler on May 7, 1938. The Pantheon was an inspiration for Hitler’s monster-building – the Volkshalle – never realised People’s Hall supposed to dominate the city of Berlin and the most famous misunderstanding of the Pantheon and its spatial power. 

Also see: DAY 7: The Pantheon 1