Pantheon
You’re at the Pantheon—Latin *Pantheum*, the “temple of all the gods”—a round 2nd-century Roman temple that later became the Basilica of St. Mary and the Martyrs (*Basilica Santa Maria ad Martyres*). The building you’re listening to today rises on the site of an older temple commissioned by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa during Augustus’s reign (27 BC–AD 14), and after that original burned, the emperor Hadrian ordered the replacement, probably dedicated around c. AD 126. In design terms, it’s the rotunda that changed architectural thinking for centuries: a coffered concrete dome with an oculus, and—famously—the height to the oculus and the interior diameter both measure 43 metres. Its influence is tied to a very practical detail, too: the dome was built as the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome. This spot has been a church since AD 609, and the square in front is Piazza della Rotonda. …
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