Panteon in Rome (Italy) - the best preserved building of ancient Rome

The Pantheon is the best-preserved building from the time of ancient Rome. He was raised in honor of the Gods. Inside, there was a ceremonial altar where animals were sacrificed and burned. Smoke was coming through the hole in the top of the dome, called "all seeing the eye of the heavens".

Oculus, or the "eye" of the dome, lets the daylight in, is wide at 8.2 meters, 5 hands holding students could fit inside hole.

The Pantheon built by Hadrian about 118 is remarkable due to its form and construction technology. It consists of a rotunda dome covered with 14 meter corinthian portico columns. The rotunda has a diameter of about 40 m.

To bear the weight of this 43.3-meter-wide dome, the thickness of the dome at the base is 7 meters, and only half a meter on the oculus rim. A heavy 20-ton bronze door leads to this huge room.

The lined granite and yellow marble intersect the seven evenly spaced recesses (for 7 deities: Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, Venus, Mercury, Pluto and Saturn). In the later renamed the church of Santa Maria Rotonda, the Pantheon, there is also the tomb of Rafael Santi.

Ok. 600 Christians took over the building and claiming that demons live there, turned it into a Catholic church.

The construction of this dome was studied by Michał Anioł before building work on Basilica of Saint. Piotr , whose dome is only half a meter narrower.

The Pantheon was the largest dome in the world for about 1,300 years, until Brunelleschi's Dome was built in Florence in 1420-36.