Plate 65. The Interior of the Pantheon

The interior consists of a cylindrical hall roofed with a half circular dome, and is 43.05 meters in diameter and 42.7 meters in height. It is lighted from a circular opening in the top of the dome 8.6 meters across. Eight large niches or chapels are formed in the 20 foot thick encircling wall. Over six of these niches is an entablature supported by two columns between antæ which form the subject of our plate. The entrance niche and the one opposite are without columns being arched over. Presumably all were constructed in this manner. Above the level of the niches and supporting the dome is an attic with a small pilaster treatment. In front of the space between the niches are Tabernacles, which will be considered at Plate 85.

The Corinthian order from the interior of the Pantheon is not much different as a whole from the order of the portico. The pilaster and column shafts are fluted, the shafts of the latter being of Punic marble and the flutes partly filled two-thirds their height from the bottom. On the columns next to the niche opposite the entrance which alone seem to be in their original location, are fine round beads on the fillets between the flutes similar to those on the upper part of the Erectheum columns (Plate 34). On this plate we show both style of flutings of the shafts of the Pantheon. On Plate 88 are shown other details of the flutes as well as the entasis of the shaft of this order.

The capitals of the pilasters, indicated in outline, are actually executed the same as the pilaster capitals of the portico shown on the former plate. On the entablature most of the vertical surfaces lean backward and the bottom surfaces slope downward which brings out a good value of light and shade. The corona is strikingly weak and the cyma over is of a strong projection, not especially harmonizing with the dentil member. The soffit of the architrave is found on Plate 87.