Descriptive Essay On The Pantheon

My final stop would be the Pantheon. The Pantheon, as well as many other renowned buildings in Italy, has made appearances in many American films. One example is Roman Holiday, a romantic comedy directed and produced by William Wyler and released in 1953. This film centers on a royal princess named Ann who, during a tour of Europe, escapes the confines of her sheltered life and goes off on her own to explore Rome, where she falls in love with an American newsman, Joe. In one of the scenes, after Joe runs into Ann eating gelato on the Spanish Steps, Ann and Joe go to the Rocca Cafe, where Ann drinks champagne, smokes a cigarette for the first time, and meets Irving Radovich, who is Joe’s colleague and photographer. The cafe, which is located right next to the Pantheon, overlooks this incredible Roman temple. The Pantheon, a temple dedicated to all of the Roman gods, is one of the most preserved buildings of ancient Rome. It is famous for its architecture, which consists of a series of intersecting arches. The Romans were known for their use of arches to help support the weight of their buildings.

The columns, forty-two feet high and fourteen in circumference, are each of one piece of red oriental granite, but of the same black colour as the rest of the building, not excepting what should be the white marble of the capitals…On entering the portico the dark columns seem to swell into greater dimensions--you approach one of them, that you may compare the size of a man with the towering mass of mortal workmanship--you strike your hand against it, but the column, which has stood unmoved for nineteen centuries, does not vibrate to your blow. You must indulge in these emotions of astonishment before you advance to the magnificent doors of sculptured bronze, and enter the temple of Jupiter and the gods, now consecrated to the Virgin and the martyrs (Peale