completely rebuilt by Hadrian in A.D. 124, who, scrupulous about claiming for himself a structure which he had merely rebuilt, had the original inscription bearing the names of Agrippa and his father copied on the new building (Pinto 77).
Septimius Severus made repairs in the third century, but on the whole it is Hadrian’s brick-faced concrete structure which stands today, with its forest of grey and red granite columns, forty-six feet high, surmounted by Corinthian capitals of time-grayed marble (Gorman 121). Bronze tiles once covered the outside of its dome and a bronze cornice still surrounds the circular opening in its centre. Walls and dome stand as in imperial days, but the marble facings of the interior are gone, and of the ancient glitter of bronze only the cornice around the opening in the dome and the bronze-covered doors of the vestibule remain (Gorman 143). In 663 the Byzantine emperor Constans II carried away the tiles from the dome, and in the seventeenth century the bronze roof trusses of the portico were melted down and recast (Pinto 165).
The pagan temple was already a Christian church when its shining tiles were removed. Phocas gave the temple to the church; Boniface was the pope who received it. In 609 it had been dedicated to Mary and All Saints or Martyrs under the name of Sancta Maria and Martyres. The Pantheon has achieved an added fame as the burial place for artists, including Raphael, and for the kings and queens of United Italy.
St. Peter’s Basilica is one of the holiest places and one of the most ancient Christian monuments. Similar to the Pantheon that was first completed by Agrippa and then rebuilt by Hadrian, St. Peter’s Basilica was first built in 324 by Emperor Constantine and