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Pantheon,
the first
building was erected in 27 B. C. by Marcus Vespasiano Agrippa, the
faithful advisor of Augustus.
In Trajan's
time, the temple was completely rebuilt
by Hadrian between 118 and 128,
in thè form we still see today.
The inscription on
the frieze of the porch, Marcus
Agrippa, son of
Lucius, consul tertrium fecit,
was therefore placed there by Hadrian
who never put his own name on any of the
monuments he built.
If you
haven't already stumbled on the Pantheon by chance, follow V. dei
Pastini west out of Piazza di Pietra
into Piazza della Rotonda, a
sloping outdoor drawing room, with a
lovely Renaissance fountain
at the center surrounded by
gelato-eating tourists who can't take
their eyes off the most extraordinary
building of all antiquity, the Pantheon
.
The
inscription over the portico-M.
AGRIPPA. L.F.COSTERTIUM FECIT
(Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, Consul
for the third time,
built_this)-incorrecdy credits the Pantheon to Agrippa, whose earlier
"temple of all the gods" was part of a
vast 1st-c. B.C. complex. It is to
Hadrian we owe the present Pantheon,
which dates to 125 A.D., and to its
7th-c. consecration as the church of
St. Mary and All Saints we credit
its survival.
Like most Roman structures, it was
cannibalized over the years-its dome
stripped bare in 655, the bronze of the
portico's beams carted off to be melted
down for St. Peter's baldacchino
and
Castel S. Angelo's cannonballs-but
its perfect proportions are unchanged,
its massive columns still stand, and its
astonishing hemispherical dome-whose
140-foot (43-meter) diameter inches out
St. Peter's, for which it served as
model-still soars above the marble
floor.
Enter
through the bronze doors, one of
three sets that survive from Hadrian's day, and stand for a while
beneath the oculus. For lunch, follow
V. del Pantheon to V. delle Colonnelle.
 A
stone's throw from the
Pantheon, the Church of S.
Maria sopra Minerva faces onto
a small square punctuated by another of
Rome's 13 obelisks, this one mounted
on the back of an elephant by Bernini.
Built over (sopra) the ruins of a temple
to Minerva in 1290, the church is the Roman home of the
Dominican Order
of Preachers, the principal
prosecutors of the Inquisition (the
adjacent monastery is where Galileo
was tried for heresy in 1633),
and contains
an exceptionally rich collection of art,
including works by Duccio, Michelangelo,
Perugino, Bernini, and Lippi and a 15th-c.
Annunciation
that commemorates the custom of
distributing dowries to impoverished
girls. It also contains the graves of
two important Dominicans:
Fra
Angelico, the 15th-c. artist, and
St. Catherine of Siena, who in
1376 persuaded Pope Gregory XI to
return to
Rome from Avignon, ending the
74-year "papal captivity." (A
diagram at the back of the church makes
it easy to identify major works.) Turn
left as you leave the church, right on
V. di S. Chiara, and continue
through Piazza dei Caprettari
to the Piazza and church of S.
Eustachio, a 1st-c. martyr who was
roasted alive with his family.
A stag's
head,
Eustachio's symbol as patron of
the chase, can be seen at the top of the
church. Facing it is the Palazzo di
Tizio di Spoleto , whose frescoed facade
depicts the life of S. Eustachio.
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