The Pantheon: From Antiquity to the Present

by Unknown

  19 For ad martyres, see Geertman 1975, p. 137; for Sanctae Mariae ad martyres, see, for instance, Duchesne 1886–1957, vol. 1, p. 343; Davis-Weyer 1989, p. 72; for Sanctae Mariae Rotundae, see Geertman 1975, p. 136. See De Blaauw 1994b, p. 14.

  20 For these churches, see Richard Krautheimer, Corpus basilicarum christianarum Romae, Vatican City, 1937–1977, 5 vols.; vol. 3, pp. 1–60, 65–71; vol. 2, pp. 249–268; Brandenburg 2005, pp. 112–113, 176–189, 224–232.

  21 For the text of the Mirabilia, see Roberto Valentini and Giuseppe Zucchetti, Codice Topografico della Città di Roma, vol. 3, Rome 1946, pp. 3–65. See also Morgan Nichols, trans., The Marvels of Rome (Mirabilia Urbis Romae), 2nd ed. New York 1986, p. 22. On this source, see Dale Kinney, “Fact and Fable in the Mirabilia Urbis Romae,” in O’Carragain and Neuman de Vegva 2007, pp. 235–253.

  22 Richard Krautheimer, “Sancta Maria Rotunda,” in Arte del primo millennio, ed. Edoardo Aslan, Turin 1953, pp. 21–27. For the centralized church and its symbolic relationship to the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, see Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, 4th ed. rev., New York 1988, p. 40; Staale Sinding Larsen, “Some Functional and Iconographical Aspects of the Centralized Church in the Italian Renaissance,” Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia 2, 1965, pp. 203–252.

  23 Carlo Bertelli, “La Madonna del Pantheon,” Bolletino d’arte 46, 1961, pp. 24–32; S. Ensoli and E. La Rocca, Aurea Roma: dalla città pagana alla città cristiana, Rome, 2000, pp. 661–662 (no. 376).

  24 Duchesne 1886–1957, vol. 1, p. 472; Raymond Davis, trans., The Lives of the Eighth-Century Popes (Liber Pontificalis), Liverpool 1992, p. 95.

  25 Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, Chicago 1994, pp. 121–122; Gerhard Wolf, Salus Populi Romani. Die Geschichte römischer Kultbilder im Mittelalter, Weinheim 1990, pp. 128–130; Erik Thunø, “The Cult of the Virgin, Icons and Relics in Early Medieval Rome A Semiotic Approach,” Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentiam 27, 2003, pp. 79–101.

  26 J. Von Pflugk-Harttung, ed., in Acta pontificum romanorum inedita, 3 vols., Stuttgart 1888, vol. 3, p. 123; De Blaauw 1994b, pp. 14, 25–26. See also Theodor Klauser, “Rom und der Kult der Gottesmutter Maria,” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 15, 1972, pp. 120–135.

  27 Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, 4th rev. ed, Hammondsworth 1986, pp. 60–64; J. B. Ward-Perkins, Roman Imperial Architecture, rev. ed., London 1994, pp. 424–426; Charles B. McClendon, The Origins of Medieval Architecture, New Haven 2005, pp. 8, 72; Brandenburg 2005, pp. 60–63, 73–78.

  28 McClendon 2005, pp. 70–72.

  29 Krautheimer 1953, p. 21; Krautheimer 1986, pp. 269–273.

  30 Krautheimer 1953, pp. 21–22. As examples of such, Krautheimer mentions a chapel at Centula (790–799), one at Würzburg (780), one at Altötting near Munich (877), and one, also from the ninth century, at Ludwigstadt. See also McClendon 2005, pp. 154–155.

  31 Jacobus De Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William Granger Ryan, 2 vols., Princeton 1993; vol. 2, 272.

  32 On these churches, see Krautheimer 1937–1977, vol. 1, 137–143; vol. 2, pp. 249–268; Brandenburg 2005, 222–234. On the Forum Romanum and its early medieval churches, see Bauer 1996, pp. 62–72; Meneghini and Santangeli Valenzani 2004, pp. 157–175.

  33 De Blaauw, 1994b, pp. 16–17, who – like Davis-Weyer before him – assumes that the altar was placed in the southwestern part of the central space of the church; Davis-Weyer 1989, pp. 61–81, esp. 77–78; Brandenburg 2005, pp. 200–213.

  34 Walafried Strabo, “De ecclesiasticarum rerum exordiis et incrementis,” in Capitularia regum francorum, legum sectio II, ed. Alfred Boretius and Viktor Krause, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 2 vols., Hannover 1883–1897; vol. 2, p. 478; De Blaauw 1994b, p. 20.

  35 De Blaauw 1994b, pp. 15–19. See also Sible De Blaauw, Cultus et Decor. Liturgia e architettura nella Roma tardoantica e medievale, Vatican City 1994, pp. 466–470.

  36 De Blaauw 1994b, p. 19. On the S. Stefano Rotondo mosaic, see Davis-Weyer 1989, pp. 61–81; Giuseppe Basile, “Il restauro del mosaico di S. Stefano Rotondo a Roma,” Arte medievale, 2nd ser., no. 1, 1993, pp. 197–204.

  37 Duchesne 1886–1957, vol. 1, pp. 363, 514; vol. 2, pp. 83; Davis trans. 1992, p. 172.

  38 Duchesne 1886–1957, vol. 1, p. 261; De Blaauw 1994b, p. 18.

  39 De Blaauw 1994b, p. 22; Pasquali 1996a, p. 41.

  40 Antonio Muñoz, “La decorazione medioevale del Pantheon,” Nuovo bulletino di archeologia cristiana, 18, 1912, pp. 25–35; De Blaauw 1994b, pp. 21–25; see also Tod A. Marder, “Specchi’s High Altar for the Pantheon and the Statues by Cametti and Moderati,” Burlington Magazine, 122, 1980, pp. 30–40.

  41 Sible De Blaauw, “Papst und Purpur. Porphyr in frühen Kirchenausstattungen in Rom,” Tesserae, Festschrift für Josef Engemann, Münster 1991, pp. 36–51.

  42 De Blaauw 1994a, vol. 2, pp. 530–556.

  43 John Patrick Donnelly, “To Close a Giant Eye: The Pantheon, 1591,” Archivium Historiae Pontificiae 24, 1986, pp. 377–384.

  44 For the text of the Mirabilibus, see Valentini and Zucchetti 1946, pp. 137–167, esp. pp. 158–159; Master Gregorius, The Marvels of Rome, trans. with commentary by John Osborne, Toronto 1987, pp. 29–30, 76–79, including a critical commentary on the statues mentioned by Gregorius.

  45 Duchesne 1886–1957, vol. 1, pp. 343; vol. 2, p. 419; Paul the Deacon repr. 1974, pp. 223–224; John the Deacon repr. 1999. See also Frank G. Moore, “The Gilt Bronze Tiles of the Pantheon,” American Journal of Archaeology 3, 1899, pp. 40–43; P. Tomei, “Le vicende del rivestimento della cupola del Pantheon,” Bollettino d’arte 32, 1938, pp. 31–39.

  46 Michael Viktor Schwarz, “Eine frühmittelalterliche Umgestaltung der Pantheon-Vorhalle,” Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana 26, 1990, pp. 1–29, especially pp. 8–10. For the inscription concerning the campanile, see Licht 1968, pp. 240, 312 (n. 10).

  47 Valentini and Zucchetti 1946, p. 45; Nichols 1986, p. 37. See also Noberto Gramaccini, Mirabilia. Das Nachleben antiker Statuen vor der Renaissance, Mainz 1996, pp. 163–165.

  48 Schwartz 1990, pp. 4–18. The literature on spolia is vast, but for a classic article and for the most recent contributions see, for instance, Arnold Esch, “Spolien: Zur Wiederverwendung antiker Baustücke und Skulpturen im Mittelalterlichen Italien,” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 51, 1969, pp. 1–64; Dale Kinney, “The Concept of Spolia,” A Companion to Medieval Art, ed. Conrad Rudolph, Oxford 2006, pp. 233–252, with discussion of historiography and extensive bibliography.

  49 Schwartz 1990, p. 19.

  50 Schwartz 1990, p. 20. As other examples of the same type of portico, Schwartz also mentions one from the sixth or seventh century in the Church of S. Thekla in Asia Minor, and one from the sixth century in the Baptistery of Hagia Sophia (pp. 19–22). For the Studios Church, see also Krautheimer 1986, pp. 104–105; Thomas Mathews, The Early Churches of Constantinople: Architecture and Liturgy, University Park/London 1971, pp. 19–21, and Thomas Mathews, The Byzantine Churches of Istanbul, University Park 1976, pp. 143–158.

  51 Schwartz 1990, p. 28. On “eastern” influence on the architecture of Rome in the sixth and seventh centuries, see Krautheimer 1980, pp. 89–108; Krautheimer 1986, pp. 268–273.

  52 Doris Gruben and Gottfried Gruben, “Die Türe des Pantheon,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung 104, 1997, pp. 3–74.

  53 Geertman 1975, pp. 132–142; De Blaauw 1994b, p. 14.

  54 Geertman 1975, pp. 195–197; De Blaauw 1994b, p. 15. On stational liturgy in Rome, see also John F. Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship, Rome 1987, and Magnuson 2004, p. 73.

  55 De Blaauw 1994b, 14–15; Krautheimer 1980, pp. 57–58.

  56 Louis Duchesne and Paul Fabre, eds., Le Liber Censuum de l’Eglise, 3 vols., Paris 1910; vol. 2, pp. 157; De Blaauw 1994b
, p. 15.

  57 De Blaauw 1994b, p. 15.

  Nine Impressions of the Pantheon in the Renaissance

  Arnold Nesselrath

  No building could have embodied Renaissance principles of ideal architecture more fully than the Pantheon: in addition to being the best-preserved temple from antiquity, the perfect specimen of antique architecture is even a circular central-plan building. The clarity of the stereometric forms of sphere and cylinder, dome and drum, as well as the proportions of diameter and height, had been preserved intact because of its transformation into a Christian church. The Pantheon far surpassed the grandeur of the only other ancient temple of Rome that still stood largely complete, the much smaller Temple of Portunus or – to use the name given to it after its conversion to its new function – the church of S. Maria Egiziaca in the former Forum Boarium.1 Here, the intercolumniations of its portico had been bricked up and closed, and its interior was drastically altered, so that the effect of the whole building no longer recalled the ancient temple it once was. The contrast between the bare undecorated brick exterior of the Pantheon, which at first sight raises no expectations other than the usual ruins of ancient buildings, and the interior, into which the solemn broad columnar portico invites us and the massive bronze doors admit us, has an astonishing effect on the person entering. The visitor experiences something like a sudden parousia, with a single source of light flooding through the open oculus in the center of the dome, where all of the structural forces and sight lines converge. The Corinthian order of columns and pilasters define and articulate the wall encircling the whole inner space of the Pantheon. The use of an order permitted – also in the primary sense of the word – the development of a homogeneous architectural system in which the curved oblong and semicircular alcoves with their corners and angles and the aedicules could be harmoniously incorporated and fully integrated.2

  In the interior of the Pantheon the much-prized richness of ancient marble incrustation was still largely preserved; the polychromy and the variety of marbles employed were unrivaled and, even after the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, they continued to conjure up its former greatness.3 This ideal view of the building was perhaps best expressed in an undated quotation attributed to Bramante. On receiving the commission for the new St. Peter’s, the first church of Christendom, he is said to have summed up his plan for the program by saying that he wanted to place the Pantheon on top of the Templum Pacis, that is, the Basilica of Constantine.4

  Other artists expressed their admiration for the ancient central-plan building of the Pantheon by choosing it as the site for their own burial. A clear statement is also expressed by this practice:5 as they anticipated resurrection under the coffered dome with its central oculus, they linked the temple reputedly consecrated to all the pagan gods with the eternity of their own Christian faith. They thus took a personal part in exorcizing the Pantheon.6 Reflecting his archaeological investigations and projects in Rome, Raphael was one of the first artists to be buried here;7 he was followed by his betrothed Maria Bibbiena8 and by friends, disciples, assistants, and followers such as Baldassare Peruzzi,9 Perino del Vaga,10 and Giovanni da Udine11 up to Annibale Carracci,12 as well as Taddeo Zuccari,13 Vignola,14 and Flaminio Vacca.15 These Renaissance artists thus founded the tradition of an abstract idea and created the metaphorical meaning of pantheon as a building serving as the memorial of the famous dead: a shrine honoring great men and women.

  On the Appearance of the Pantheon in the Renaissance

  It is precisely the ideal image of the Pantheon that the draftsmen, the engravers, and the authors of treatises of that period helped to disseminate. Yet the impression that the Renaissance spectator gained on entering the building was quite the opposite of this ideal. As with all reused ancient temples, its appearance had been drastically altered by its transformation into a Christian church or, rather, as a consequence of that operation. Even if the consummate proportions could not be upset by this development, the overall impression of what had once been the ancient cella below the dome had been fractured by the altar layout before the main apse, consisting of a ciborium contained within a kind of columnar screen or pergola, and by the fragmented use of the interior space. The alcoves, tabernacles, and annexes that formally determine the wall rhythm of the rotunda were isolated by their new liturgical functions: each was individually formed, each had its own altar and focal point, and to each was assigned its own individual dedication.

  With their numerous altars and with their use as side chapels against or behind the ancient wall, the alcoves generated through their chronologically, stylistically, or chromatically miscellaneous arrangement an altogether heterogeneous impression of the interior, permitting only a faint sense of the uniform concept of the ancient temple to remain. In its transformation, the damage caused to the fabric, original decoration, and marble incrustation of the walls was serious. Even the patterns of the original pavement were upset and interrupted with the insertion of tombstones. Raphael’s famous drawing in the Uffizi (see Fig. 1.16) thus suggests an image of the Pantheon16 that did not correspond to its actual condition at the time. Although numerous other representations seem to reinforce this image, the appearance of the ancient interior, intact as represented in this drawing, in no way corresponded to what the visitor would have seen around 1506 and already long before.

  After the ancient temple had been abandoned and then transformed into a Christian church in the early seventh century, and after it had been used as a church in subsequent centuries, larger and smaller additions built into it had altered the original appearance of the Pantheon considerably. Moreover, the ancient statues with their three-dimensional qualities, which would have engaged with the architectural system and complemented the symmetry of the interior, were by now replaced by flat paintings positioned mainly over the altars in the alcoves or aedicules and executed in part in the form of frescoes.17 Although the dedication to “Sancta Maria ad Martyres” was frequently used to refer to the building, the alternative “Santa Maria Rotonda” alluded to its architectural form and perhaps its ancient origin. Indeed, the liturgical furnishings for its new cult found hardly any visual record until the seventeenth century.

  The same could be said, although to a lesser degree, of the exterior. The Pantheon is situated in the Campo Marzio, a quarter of Rome that remained inhabited even in periods when the population of the city declined.18 The piazza in front of it was somewhat smaller before its baroque remodeling; the streets around the building were narrower, and the medieval houses crowded closer to the Rotunda than the buildings now surrounding it. The left (east) flank of the columnar portico had been destroyed. The corner of the pediment, the corresponding row of columns, or at least their capitals, and the roof had here collapsed, and a temporary retaining wall filled the entire intercolumniation (Fig. 9.1) to shore up the porch. The other intercolumniations had been partly blocked with low retaining walls, both to defend against floods and to demarcate the various activities transacted there. The portico was a popular place for an extraordinary variety of functions and, as such, was repeatedly invaded by unauthorized structures and uses.19 The roof of the portico was topped by a squat medieval belfry (Fig. 9.2). These visual documents illustrate this situation only from a relatively late date, principally the sixteenth century. The first image, one of the earliest vedute, is found in the famous Codex Escurialensis. It shows the walled-in intercolumniations. Unfortunately, however, it did not copy the view in every detail and thus fails to give a full impression of the Pantheon’s exterior at the time.20 Another drawing by an anonymous hand, perhaps dating to the mid sixteenth century and now in Paris, gives a fuller record of the monument and shows in an impressive way how the Pantheon had gradually merged into its quarter and its surrounding structures (see Fig. 1.7).21 When this sheet was drawn, the Piazza della Rotonda had already been adorned and articulated with the antiquities installed there during the Middle Ages: namely, the two Egyptian lions, the large porphyry tub, and the r
ound porphyry bowl, documented there at least since the twelfth or thirteenth centuries and described by the famous Master Gregorius.22 They are mentioned again in the time of Pope Eugenius IV around 1444,23 and Pope Leo X commissioned them to be reinstalled between 1517 and 1520 in the way they are shown in the drawing.24

  9.1. Exterior view of the Pantheon; hand of the Anonymous Escurialensis, sixteenth century. (Codex Escurialensis, fol. 43 v, Monastery of El Escorial, Spain)

  9.2. Exterior view of the Pantheon; drawing from circle of Baldassare Peruzzi. (Uffizi A 160 r, Uffizi Gallery. Copyright: Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Fiorentino)

  The sculptures were separately displayed on rather unprepossessing squat pedestals. The feet of the porphyry tub stood on two marble panels decorated in relief, and inscriptions (Fig. 9.3 a and b), now walled into the portico, commemorated the Leonine installation of the ensemble.25 The veduta (“view”) of the Pantheon exterior from the Uffizi by an assistant of Baldassare Peruzzi (Fig. 9.2),26 is earlier than the drawing in the Escorial. The embarrassmentor indecisiveness of the Uffizi draftsman is apparent. On the one hand, the drawing tries to provide a really precise impression of the situation after the installation of the antiquities in front of it by Leo X. On the other hand, it highlights and isolates the ancient building and the antique sculptures. The stonework is represented rather coarsely, although the ashlar of the tympanum is represented in detail. In order to reveal the floor of the portico, the artist has deliberately omitted the low retaining walls in the lower part of the intercolumniations, which are especially clear in the somewhat later views of the interior of the portico by an anonymous Netherlandish draftsman (see Fig. 1.4).27