Plate 64. The Portico of the Pantheon at Rome

The Pantheon is the most important structure preserved from the Roman times. It is a round building roofed with a dome and is 54.44 meters in diameter and […] meters high with a rectangular portal entrance. Valerius of Ostia is supposed to have been the architect.

Before the front rectangular wing, stands a portico of 16 Corinthian columns of which 8 stand on the front. Over their entablature is a pediment 7.21 meters high the tympanum of which was ornamented with the battle of Jupiter with the giants executed in gilded bronze. This portico does not seem to have been in the original plan of the building, but according to the inscription on the cornice was probably added by Agrippa.* Plate 53 gives a view of the column and the pilaster with the entablature at a small scale, the details of which are shown on Plate 64.

The order of this portico has at all times attracted the attention and aroused the wonder of architects and critics, and all agree that this monument in all its relations is to be considered as the finest and the most thoroughly studied. The base of white marble is the Corinthian, also called the composite. At one time, six steps each 6[…] inches high formed the approach. The shafts of the columns consist of one piece of polished red spotted Egyptian granite and were not fluted, for the beautiful play of color and the glitter of light on this material would only have been marred by the addition of flutes. The shafts of the pilasters, being of white marble are fluted, which breaks the plain surface suitably and also gives a lighter appearance to the mass. The round bead besides ornamenting the corner also acts as a protection therefor.

The capital is of white marble, and its design represents one of the oldest examples of that style which so often found use on the Roman monuments and was considered as a standard by the later masters, who looked upon all other often very fantastic capitals of the Corinthian style only as degenerate varieties. The latter view however is far from correct, particularly when we consider the different scales of execution, for that which is applicable for the large size of the Pantheon would, for instance, reduced to the size of the small columns of the Tower of the Winds, appear insignificant, while the simple capital of the latter monument would, if enlarged to fit the mighty columns of the Pantheon, appear gigantic and crude.

The leafwork on the capital of the Pantheon is not acanthus, but consists of carved olive like leaves, whose ends are larger and more bent than is found on the capitals of the Grecian works. The pilaster capital is a little more in height than that of the column, probably because it belonged to the older building. The increased height however compensates somewhat for the greater width.

The entablature, also of white marble, in comparison with the columns and their spacing, is of proper relation in all its parts and shows in its ornamentation a certain suppression. In keeping with the unfluted column shafts, the dentil course remains smooth. The member thereover is decorated with the egg and dart. The modillions or beam heads in an entirely individual treatment of the Roman Corinthian entablature, occur here for the first time and in the best form. The soffit of the architrave is shown on Plate 87. The roof of this portico was covered with plates of glided bronze and the interior ceiling was also once of bronze. In the year 1632 Pope Urban VIII removed these bronzes from which to mould the colossal Tabernacle (by Bernini) of St. Peter's church. The dome lost its bronze covering and its interior decoration in the middle ages. The bronze door, shown on Plates 85 and 93, is however still in place.