Pantheon

The Pantheon is the best preserved, in fact, of all great Classical monuments. Admiral Agrippa, who defeated Anthony and Cleopatra at Actium, dedicated the Pantheon in 27 BC. Its seven interior niches were apparently designed for the seven planetary deities, Apollo, Diana, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, who also ruled over the days of the week, maintaining total control of the space-time continuum. In short, the Pantheon was built to incorporate late-pagan faith at its most philosophical beliefs. The soaring dome expresses that function miraculously well. The dome’s diameter is precisely the same as its interior height: 142 feet. At its apex there is a bronze- lipped circular aperture 30 feet across, wide open to the weather and also to the changing angles of light ordained from hour to hour by the circlings of the sun and moon overhead.