Rome: The Pantheon

Irony of ironies, the Pantheon was actually closed on All Saints' Day. This may be the cry of the wounded Unitarian, but even if you are the Catholic Church, and even if you are in Rome, and even if you have converted an ancient pagan building into a cathedral, I still call it foul play to close the temple of all gods for the holiday of one religion. Especially when that holiday is not on the official list of closures posted on the door.

However, on Sunday morning, the Pantheon was open, there was no line, and my wrath was somewhat appeased.

Nothing prepares you for the sudden presence of the building, the way you just round a corner and it's right there, with no grand anticipatory staircase, no giant surrounding field.



Inside, the decorations are fairly understated (for Italy). But it's the proportions that move you anyway.

I can't escape the sense that this building is part of the natural order of things. Some of this is because of the way the light from the ocellus moves across the interior, the disc of light traveling in something akin to an orbit, across structural lines that seem to trace the paths of other orbits. Some of it is because, well, the building does mimic the shape of the planet. Some of it is the elegance of proportion (and I suppose in this the building essentially borrows the elegance of the universe, to use Brian Greene's phrase).

In any case, yes, a building like this more or less has to be universal. To declare otherwise is to miss the point.