ARCHITECTURE. 71 
Bernini. Clement IX. disfigured the portico by the railing, 14 feet high, 
between the columns. 
The chief building of the Pantheon forms a complete circle, whose dia- 
meter is 153 feet, and 133 feet in the clear. The exterior has three 
grand divisions, with freestone cornices. The foundation is of white 
marble, the rest of the building is brick. Upon the chief wall rests the 
dome, covered with lead, and on the outside diminishing stepwise to- 
wards the apex. The height of the steps is 27 feet. The dome has at 
top a round opening 373 feet wide, with a bronze cornice, the means 
of illumination of the interior. The original facade, before the portico was 
built, had 4 pillars, upon which rested a great gable, which is now partly 
concealed by the gable of the portico. The colonnade added by Agrippa 
consists of 16 smooth Corinthian columns 44 feet, 1 inch in height. Hight 
of them stand in the front row (pl. 17, fig. 7). The corner columns are 4 
feet, 8 inches in diameter, the middle 4 feet, 6 inches. The shafts of the 
columns are sculptured of a single block of granite; the capitals, bases, and 
the cornices are of white marble. The sides of the front and rear gables run 
parallel, and the cornice of the gable fields rests on consoles. The tympa- 
num had sculptures, probably in bronze relief. Under the portico in the 
middle is the single door of the Pantheon. There is a bronze grating in the 
upper part of the door to admit light into the interior of the edifice. There 
are bronze rosettes in the little panels of the door. On its side are two large 
niches built of brick covered with stucco, as high as the door (36 feet, 
1% inches), in which formerly stood the statues of Augustus and Agrippa. 
The latter is now in the palace Giustiniani in Venice. Agrippa’s ashes lay 
in a fine sarcophagus which stood afterwards in one of the niches. It now 
contains the body of Pope Clement XII., and stands in the church of St. 
John Lateran. 
The height of the interior of the Pantheon is equal to its diameter. There 
are two great side arches, supported upon 4 of the 14 columns which support 
the main cornice. One of these arches is in the further end, and under it 
once stood the statue of Jupiter; the other springs over the entrance. Be- 
sides these there are smaller chapels in the circumference of the interior ; 
two form semicircles, the rest long quadrangles. Every chapel has pilasters 
upon the side, before which stand Corinthian columns wrought of yellow- 
veined marble, 3 feet, 4 inches in diameter, and 32 feet, 5} inches high. 
The shafts are each sculptured out of a single block, and the flutings are 
filled below with beads. Between the chapels stand eight altars. Each 
altar is formed of 2 little Corinthian columns 44 inches through with their 
entablature, cut in the style of the order which is still visible on the arch of 
Constantine, with a gable over it. The gables are alternately semi- 
circular and triangular, the whole apparently imitated from the niches of 
the temples of Palmyra. The columns, partly of marble, partly of porphyry, 
partly of polished granite, stand upon high plinths. Behind each altar 
in the wall are empty semicircular chambers, which are repeated at every 
story. Doors lead to the lower ones, steps to the middle, doors again to the 
upper. These chambers serve for the saving of masonry, for the drying and 
71 
