Describe The Pantheon Essay

The pantheon is made up of two principal parts; the porch; which is a highly idealised and more greek interpretation and the circular building which is much more Roman in it’s display. The pantheon follows traditional Roman architecture designed with a portico held up by eight Corinthian columns almost 12m high. The monolithic columns shafts are made of Aswan grey granite contrasted with the white pentelic marble of the capitals.The porch is supported by these Corinthian columns and is made out of white marble which is also seen on the circular building to seemingly connect these structures together. The porch displays several relief structures to add to the architecture of the building and features several depictions of objects that would have been used on sacrifices such as axes, dishes and boxes. Researches and analysis have gauged that the pediment placed above these columns would have had some sort of inscription or…

Contrasting the outside with the inside we can say that the inside takes a more Roman swing and portrays itself as less idealised than the classical greek architecture of the exterior. The exterior is a lost more basic and unadorned with that much detail contrasted with the inside, inside we see an embellishment of decorations including a dome using the so called honeycombing effect also called coffers which allows the building to appear larger than it actually is. The eight niches to the side indicate where the statues would have gone but have since been lost to history. The marble floors contributing to this idea of simple geometry as they are inlaid with coloured granite making circles and rectangles however sadly much of the original marble and bronze which would have been on the originally has been removed particularly due to Pope Urban VII’s who ordered the bronze to be melted to help with…