Throughout the middle ages this temple was prized as the palladium and emblem of Rome. The main part of the building is circular in form,--the height and diameter of which are said to be equal, each being one hundred and forty-two feet,--and is composed of that concrete that the ancient Romans knew how to make so lasting. It is lighted by an uncovered aperture, thirty feet in diameter, in the center of the dome, rimmed by an elegant ancient cornice of bronze. The rich columns of different kinds of marble and the other decorations of the interior are most imposing, and correspond well with the stately Corinthian portico which forms the front of the edifice and under which once stood colossal bronze statues of Augustus and Agrippa. The five front steps by which it was entered in ancient times, are now covered by the raising of the ground all around the building. The entrance is still closed by the ancient massive, bronze doors. In 1632 Pope Urban VIII, one of the Barberini family, took away the bronze columns and ceiling of the portico to make out of them the elaborate pillars which support the canopy of the high altar in St. Peter’s, and also cannon for the Castle of St. Angelo. This occasioned the circulation of a popular epigram of Pasquin. “What the Barbarians did not do the Barberini did.” The Pantheon is the noblest and best preserved building of ancient Rome,--the only one, indeed, having both its walls and vaulting intact, and it is still closed by its ancient heavy bronze doors. Lord Byron’s lines concerning it are well worth quoting because of the conciseness of his description. Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime, Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods From Jove to Jesus, spared and blessed by time, Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods His way through thorns to ashes! Glorious dome, Shalt thou not last? Time’s scythe and tyrants’ rods Shiver upon thee, sanctuary and home Of art and piety, Pantheon, pride of Rome! It is not strange that it was deemed the most fitting place for the burial of the great artist, Raphael, and for that of the King of United Italy, Victor Emmanuel. Of the former event the poet Rogers says: When Raphael went, His heavenly face the mirror of his mind, His mind a temple for all lovely things To flock and to inhabit--when he went, Wrapp’d in his sable cloak, the cloak he wore, To sleep beneath the venerable dome, By those attended who in life had loved, Had worship’d, following in his steps to fame, ’Twas on an April day, when Nature smiles. All Rome was there. Victor Emmanuel’s tomb is always covered with wreaths, tributes by the living to his honor.