A Rereading of the Interior Elevation of Hadrian's Rotunda

Abstract

The Pantheon, in particular the interior of the Rotunda, has posed a paradox: unrestrained praise for its overall effect; severe criticism for its interior elevation. The criticisms were rooted in a Renaissance perception of Roman imperial architecture, a perception based too heavily on a Vitruvian view of Hellenistic trabeate architectural design, largely irrelevant to the Rotunda. This view of the critiques of San Gallo the Younger, Michelangelo, Desgodetz, and Viollet-le-Duc leads one to the Roman aims of the Roman architect who designed this interior. I wish to show how the Hadrianic state of the Rotunda may be taken as a projection of the Roman idea of the templum mundi.

The Role of the Sun in the Pantheon’s Design and Meaning

“…The contributions towards solving this problem have analyzed several aspects possibly connected with the symbolism in the project (see, e.g., Loerke 1990;Joost-Gaugier 1998;Wilson Jones 2003;Sperling 2004) and, of course, most authors have more or less emphasized the role of the sunbeam (see e.g., Granger 1933;Del Monte and Lanciano 1990;Thomas 1997;Rosenbusch in Sperling 1997:236;Magli 2007:288-94;Hannah 2009a:145-56).…”

The Cult Statues of the Pantheon

“… 197 See Loerke 1990; Wilson Jones 2000: 182–4. It was evident in the hemispherical dome; its five rows of twenty-eight coffers plausibly painted with stars on a blue background; the twenty-eight sections of the attic storey; and the division of the ground storey into sixteen sections, mirroring the division of the Etruscan sky. …”