692 
EXTRAORDINARY BUILDINGS, 
&c. 
Pantheon. 
This is a beautiful edifice at Rome, anciently dedicated to all 
the gods, but now converted into a church, and dedicated to the 
Virgin and all the martyrs. It has been generally supposed to have 
been built by Agrippa, son-in-law to Augustus, because it has the 
following inscription on the frieze of the portico : “M. Agrippa, L. F. 
Cos. Tertium fecit.” Several antiquarians and artists, however, have 
supposed that the Pantheon existed in the times of the common- 
wealth ; and that it was only embellished by Agrippa, who added the 
portico. Be this as it will, the Pantheon, when perfected by Agrippa, 
was an exceedingly magnificent building. The form of its body is 
round or cylindrical, and its roof or dome is spherical; it is one hun- 
dred and forty-four feet diameter within ; and the height of it, from 
the pavement to the grand aperture on the top, through which it 
receives the light, is just as mucli. It is of the Corinthian order. 
The inner circumference is divided into seven grand niches, wrought 
in the thickness of the wall : six of these are flat at the top ; but the 
seventh, opposite to the entrance, is arched. Before each niche are 
two columns of antique yellow marble, fluted, and of one entire block, 
making in all the finest in Rome. The whole wall of the temple, as 
high as the grand cornice inclusive, is cased with divers sorts of precious 
marble in compartments. The frieze is entirely of porphyry. 
Above the grand cornice arises an attic, in which were wrought, at 
equal distances, fourteen oblong square niches. Between each niche 
were four marble pilasters, and between the pilasters marble tables 
of various kinds. This attic had a complete entablature, but the 
cornice projected less than that of the grand order below. Imme- 
diately from the cornice spring the spherical roofs, divided by bands 
which cross each other like the meridians and parallels of an arti- 
ficial terrestrial globe. The spaces between the bands increase in 
size as they approach the top of the roof; to which, however, they 
do not reach, there being a considerable plain space between them 
and the great opening. That so bold a roof might be as light as 
possible, the architect formed the substance of the spaces between the 
bands of nothing but lime and pumice stones. The walls below were 
decorated with lead and brass, and works of carved silver over them, 
and the roof was covered on the outside with plates of gilded bronze. 
There was an ascent from the springing of the roof to the very sum- 
mit, by a flight of seven stairs. The portico is composed of sixteen 
columns of granite, four feet in diameter, eight of which stand in 
