The Pantheon, Rome: Built in 125 AD, Still Standing

The Pantheon is the best-preserved ancient building in the world. It was originally built as a temple to all the gods of Rome around 125 AD under Hadrian, converted to a Christian church in 609 AD, and has been in continuous use since. That uninterrupted occupancy is why it survived while most of antiquity crumbled.

The building’s key engineering achievement is the dome. At 43.3 metres in diameter, it was the largest concrete dome in the world until the Florence Duomo was completed in 1436 — 1,300 years later. The oculus at the dome’s summit (9 metres across) is the only source of natural light inside. It’s open to the sky, so when it rains, the floor gets wet; a slight convex curve in the marble drains water toward hidden channels.

What to Expect Inside

The interior is a single circular room. The visual impact on first entry — the dome above, the ring of niches around the walls, the quality of light from the oculus — tends to produce a moment of genuine stillness in people who weren’t expecting it.

The tombs of Raphael (in the third chapel on the left) and the kings Vittorio Emanuele II and Umberto I are here. The inscription on Raphael’s tomb reads: “Here lies Raphael, by whom Nature feared to be outdone while he lived, and when he died, feared that she herself would die.”

Since April 2023 entry requires a timed ticket booked online (€5, rising to €20 for some time slots with different benefits). Queuing at the door is no longer the standard experience — book in advance at the official Pantheon website.

The Piazza della Rotonda

The piazza around the Pantheon is permanently lively. The 1575 fountain in the centre adds an Egyptian obelisk above the original Giacomo della Porta basin. The café and restaurant prices on the piazza are inflated; similar quality food at half the price is available two streets away. Supplì Roma on Via dei Tribunali (10 minutes’ walk) is the reference point for Roma-style supplì (fried rice balls with mozzarella).

Getting There

The Pantheon is in the Pigna area of Rome’s historic centre, walkable from Campo de’ Fiori (10 minutes), Piazza Navona (5 minutes), and Piazza Venezia (12 minutes). No metro station is particularly close; the 40, 64, or 87 buses stop nearby. Walking from Termini station takes about 25 minutes through the historic centre, which is a good route regardless.

Nearby

Piazza Navona is 5 minutes’ walk and has Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers (1651) as its centrepiece. The square has good atmosphere in the evening when the restaurants are lit and the crowds thin slightly.

Sant’Ignazio di Loyola church, 3 minutes from the Pantheon, has an extraordinary trompe l’oeil ceiling by Andrea Pozzo (1694) that creates the illusion of a full architectural dome from a specific spot on the nave floor — there’s a disc marking the correct viewing position. It’s free, rarely crowded, and consistently surprising.