The Pantheon: From Antiquity to the Present

by Unknown

  10.5. Longitudinal section of Pantheon; drawing by Baldassare Peruzzi. (Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea, Ferrara)

  It is likely that Michelangelo had some of these formal considerations in mind, even when he praised the design of the attic’s windows as “most graceful,” the portico as a “thing most precious,” and the interior design as “angelic and not human.” Angelic and not human, Michelangelo maintained, but only up to the main cornice (dal primo Cornicione in giù era disegno angelico, e non umano).25 Like earlier and later students of the building, Michelangelo believed that the Pantheon was the product of three different architects and three separate phases, which included the rotunda, the dome, and the portico. As Vasari recounted it, Michelangelo believed that the first architect would have brought the building to the height of the large cornice; the second from the cornice to the top of the dome, including the “genial” form of the windows; and the third architect was responsible for that “most singular” portico.26 For our purposes, it is important to note that Michelangelo’s judgment was known and quoted in the seventeenth century during the pontificates of both Urban VIII and Alexander VII.27

  We can be sure that these concerns retained their currency in the seventeenth century by referring to the notations of Inigo Jones while in Rome on “ye last of May 1614.”28 In his personal copy of the 1601 edition of Palladio’s Quattro libri, Jones attempted to note “more then is in Palladio,” regarding the details and dimensions of the Pantheon, thus to correct or dilate upon issues of contemporary interest.29 The process is interesting as much for Jones’s keen observations as for his critical attitude toward Palladio and toward the Pantheon. For example, he criticized his predecessor’s rendition of the stairs in the intermediate block: “Palladio makes not these staires as they ar but as he conceaves they should be but this is too great liberti.” Observing the interior of the rotunda itself, Jones does not hesitate to criticize the ancient elevation in familiar ways. He warns: “Noat the ribes of this volte answears with nothing below yt. Not to be Imitated. / The second order had in my opinion better had been an Opera bastarda, for so yt is now in effectte.” By this he means wall strips without proper bases or capitals, as on the upper story of Bramante’s Tempietto, which Jones also referred to as an “opera bastarda.”30 On the lower margin of the page illustrating the Pantheon, Inigo referred to “A drawing of this sumwhat otherwyze,” suggesting that he, like many others, had imagined and drawn a scheme with improvements on the ancient composition of the Pantheon. His drawing remains unidentified.

  Eventually, it seems to have been Bernini who first explained how the pilastrini of the attic corresponded to the order of the pilasters and columns rising from the pavement. In an insight laden with associations for the term “baroque” in the visual arts, he explained the correspondence as one of rhythm and proportion rather than superimposition. Thus, when his patron, Pope Alexander VII, repeatedly asked him to “enliven” the dome of the Pantheon, Bernini refused. Maintaining that he lacked the talent necessary to do anything of the sort, Bernini professed a willingness only to paint the pilastrini in the attic if money were lacking to replace them in genuine marble. His refusal, we are told, was highlighted by an aperçu meant as much to reveal the nature of the design as to argue for its preservation. For he justified his refusal by a clever reading of the attic that his predecessors had missed: “Having recognized that the pilastrini with their associated placement and proportions corresponded to the order rising from the pavement – that there was the same symmetry and eurythmy – with the judgement of a truly great man, measured and modest, Bernini said that he did not have the skill to make any changes.”31 In short, Bernini had recognized that the rhythm of the units of four pilastrini at the attic level, separated by the windows, conformed to the four-part pilaster-and-column groups across the niches of the lowest level, separated by the main piers.

  This exchange is recorded in a document of 1762 known in two copies. It takes the form of a letter addressed to the young architect assigned to complete the design of the Trevi Fountain after the death of Nicola Salvi in 1751. Salvi’s successor was Giuseppe Pannini, son of the painter, who was hired to finish the fountain at a time when much of its temporary sculptural decoration remained to be executed in stone. The letter describes how Bernini, a century earlier, had considered the ancient decoration of the Pantheon as perfect and therefore “incapable of change or correction by any other later architect.” The purpose of the letter was to admonish the young, newly appointed architect of the Trevi fountain to be similarly faithful to the original decorative scheme he had inherited from Salvi. The author of the letter was probably Salvi’s brother, which would explain the partisanship of the writer, who elsewhere in the letter addresses Pannini in the diminutive as l’architettino (literally: “little architect”).32

  It is just possible that the eighteenth-century writer himself stumbled on a reading of the Pantheon, which he then attributed to Bernini and which resolves a problem that disturbed Francesco di Giorgio, Peruzzi, Sangallo the Younger, Michelangelo, and many other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century architects. Alternatively, another still-anonymous source might be credited with the insight. Yet the simplest and most sensible conclusion is that the anecdote about Bernini’s refusal to honor Alexander’s request to enliven the interior of the Pantheon reflects events, and that Bernini’s insight was based on his ability to appreciate an aspect of the building that had confounded his predecessors. If this reading of the evidence is accepted, Bernini may be identified as the first observer to explain the apparent anomaly in the scansion of the attic pilastrini of the Pantheon.

  In short, Bernini was arguing that the ancient architects of the Pantheon had recapitulated the rhythmic sequencing of the main order of the rotunda in the minor order of the attic. He may even have arranged to illustrate the matter in a large wash drawing that is usually associated with his studio (Fig. 10.6). Thus, the pilasters of the main order are more widely separated than the spaces between the adjoining columns. The result is an “a-b-b-b-a” rhythm, which is the same as the rhythm that can be observed between the windows of the attic.33 Likely, the observation had escaped Renaissance architects because their understanding of classical composition did not embrace such rhythmic complexity, despite numerous examples of it in other ancient monuments, such as Trajan’s Baths (see Chapter Five). The notion of superimposed rhythms of varying proportions appears in ancient Roman architecture, like the Porta dei Borsari in Verona, which was well known in the Renaissance.34 Here, the syncopation of horizontal cadences and the inversion of relief levels obliterate vertical consistency. By contrast, Michelangelo was unwilling to acknowledge the precedence of horizontal over vertical consistency, as in his designs for S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini, where the attic register continues the lines of the main order, but the diminished scale of the higher components is not accompanied by a proportional reduction in their lateral spacing.35 Had Michelangelo shared Bernini’s vision, the designs for S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini would have incorporated diminished spaces between the order on the attic and those on a larger scale rising below them.

  10.6. Elevation of Pantheon with portion of old high altar drawn on flap (lower left); wash drawing from Bernini workshop. (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Chigi P VII, 9, fol. 110)

  All the same, Bernini’s understanding of these matters was not widely held. In a manuscript of 1707 accompanied by drawings in the Soane Museum, the Scottish architect James Gibbs described the interior of the rotunda with an “Attick adorned with small pilasters, which neither answer to ye upright of the columns below them, nor to the ribs betwixt the large panels in the roof above them, and has a very bad effect.” In his drawings, he indicates “the Small pilasters over ye great columns, neither conforming to ye ribs ... of ye Cupola above them, nor ... ye columns below them.” As an antidote, he drew “the Attick keept plain, much better than with ye small pilasters, having no proportion to ye great Columns.”36 It is likely that Gibb’s rema
rks reflect the state of studies among contemporary scholars of the monument, for he resided in Rome (1703–1708) and trained in the studio of Carlo Fontana. He had actually taken his drawings from the engravings of Fontana’s Templum Vaticanum of 1694, except for the fact that Fontana preferred to populate the attic with caryatids. Fontana located these caryatids directly above the shafts of the main order in an effort to correct the problem recognized by previous generations of architects (see Fig. 11.2).37

  Alexander VII and his Interior Embellishments

  When Alexander VII Chigi (1655–1667) requested Bernini’s assistance to “enliven” the Pantheon – and the artist responded three separate times in the negative – it is likely that the pope based his decorative aspirations on the belief that the interior had been sculpturally embellished in antiquity and that the attic in particular had been redecorated when the building was rededicated to become a Christian church. The locus classicus for the caryatids that appear in Fontana’s engraving is Pliny the Elder’s Natural History 36, 38, but Pliny (d. AD 79) is unclear about the location of the figures in Agrippa’s edifice. They were sometimes interpreted as decoration for the portico, or belonging to the major order of the interior, or within the niches of the rotunda, but no one had suggested yet that they belonged at the level of the interior attic. Famiano Nardini’s magisterial Roma antica, published in 1665 and well known to Alexander VII, concluded that one simply could not determine “in what part of the Pantheon they were or could have been.” But that did not stop an investigation of other ancient sources like Dio Cassius and Vitruvius, or the early modern writings of Flavio Biondo, Michelangelo, or Ludovico Demonzioso, all of whom are cited in the Chigi archives.38

  Carlo Fontana, who had served as Bernini’s assistant at St. Peter’s but also followed an independent practice, subscribed to the notion that the Pantheon had been built in stages. The original structure, he maintained, was a Roman Republican building to which Agrippa had later added a portico. At the same time, Fontana believed, Agrippa had also added a corresponding Corinthian order to the interior of the building, which had previously consisted only of arches. Fontana believed that to cover the upper zone of the old arches and fill the margin between the new order and the springing of the dome, Agrippa had employed caryatid figures directly above the main order of columns and pilasters. Although he does not explain why, Fontana concluded that the caryatids in the attic register were replaced by the pilastrini when the temple was exorcised and converted to Christian purposes. At this time, presumably, the vertical accents on the attic were applied without regard for their correspondence to the lower order; but no account is given of the apparent dislocation of the pilastrini from the ribs of the dome. These relationships are clearly illustrated in Fontana’s engravings, which include the prima edificazione and above it the Pantheon with ornati fatti da Agrippa.39 (See Fig. 11.2 and comments by Susanna Pasquali in Chapter Eleven.)

  From this exposition in text and image, Fontana appears to have given form to Alexander VII’s ambitions in several ways. For example, Fontana maintained that while Agrippa did not erect the dome, he did plan to provide it with stucco ornament. And Fontana praised Alexander VII for ordering the dome encrusted with stucco decoration “in the way it was formerly,” that is, in antiquity. In a similar spirit, wrote Fontana, Alexander intended to decorate the attic with large figures of angels set directly above the Corinthian columns in place of the ancient caryatids once located there. The angels were to be conceived, scaled, and posed so that they would appear illusionistically to support the cornice on which the dome rests. Somewhat wistfully, then, Fontana informs us that the work was cut short by Alexander’s death and that some of the stuccoes that had recently been realized were removed. In any event, there can be little doubt that Alexander had intended for Bernini, a master of illusionism in figural sculpture, to provide the angeloni who were to be placed and posed to appear almost magically to support the dome.

  The seriousness of Alexander VII’s intentions can be gauged by his orders in 1666 to “finish the Rotonda” with money he was allotting to the operation. A report in 1667 that scaffolding was being built in the interior “to embellish the whole with stuccoes” proves that work moved forward.40 Although his successor, Clement IX Rospigliosi (1667–1669), had the decorations removed, remains of Alexander’s work are visible on the surface of the dome in the version of Pannini’s famous painting now in Copenhagen. (See Fig. 11.1 and the comments by Pasquali in Chapter Eleven.) Other evidence of his goals are to be seen in two drawings for coffer decorations composed of the Chigi family arms (six-pointed star, six mounts, intertwined laurel). One drawing shows three vertical portions of the dome with decorated coffers (Fig. 10.7). The other drawing is a carefully drawn transverse section of the rotunda, with additions of the proposed decoration to the coffers added in another hand. Above the transverse section is a view into the dome with Alexander’s name and the family stars deployed around the oculus (Fig. 10.8). There is no evidence that the precise features in either drawing were realized in the Pantheon and, as I have argued extensively elsewhere, neither of these drawings can be attributed to Bernini.41 They represent the vision of his patron, a learned Sienese pope who wished to mark the Pantheon with his own erudition and presence. The nature of these ambitions no doubt led his successor to pull down some of his decorations.

  10.7. Project for decorating the coffers with the arms of Alexander VII Chigi; ink and wash. (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Chigi P VII, 9, fol. 113 r)

  10.8. Transverse section showing proposed coffer decorations; drawing in several hands from workshop of Carlo Fontana. (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Chigi P VII, 9, fol. 111–112)

  Longer lasting were the inscriptions from Psalms 149–150 that Alexander had ordered painted on the unbroken surface above the entablature of the main order and below the attic level. On the left (east) side of the rotunda, one read the words LAUS EIUS IN ECCLESIA SANCTORUM (Let His Praise be in the Church of the Saints); on the right (west) side, upon entering one saw the words LAUDATE DOMINUM IN SANCTIS EIUS (Praise the Lord in His Sanctuary). Clearly visible in the Pannini paintings, the inscriptions commemorated Alexander’s deep regard for antiquity in the service of the Church, even referring to the function of the Pantheon (Santa Maria ad martyres) as a burial site for all martyrs (see Plate II). Once again, however, fate intervened, for the inscriptions were obliterated during the eighteenth-century refashioning of the attic (Plate VIII).

  To a great extent Alexander VIII’s attitude followed in the tradition of other papal caretakers of the Pantheon, from Gregory III (731–741), who covered the dome anew after the despoliation of Constans II, to Martin V (1417–1431) andEugene IV (1431–1447), who continued this work, to Nicholas V (1447–1455), whose lead roof tiles still exist (see Fig. 9.14).42 Later campaigns devoted to providing lead tiles for the roof were recorded under Pius II (1458–1464) and Clement VII (1523–1534), and surely others as well. On the other hand, there was a compulsive aspect to Alexander’s attentions, which spanned his entire pontificate. In the spring of 1655, for example, during his first pontifical year, he ordered an inspection of water damage to the dome. Late in the summer of 1656, he sent Borromini to examine the bronze doors of the Pantheon and how they were hung (la positura), surely to determine whether they were ancient despite their unusual composition with a grating above the leaves.43 In 1662, he spent successive evenings studying l’occhio della Rotonda (“the eye of the Rotunda”) in drawings and a clay model of the building. He commissioned a study of the stone that composed the surviving pavement (see Plate V), and his architects studied the possibility of glazing the oculus to prevent further water damage. Many of his projects were concluded just months before his death.

  In the mid fourteenth century, the mystic Hermann of Fritzlar had maintained that demons had opened the oculus in an effort to escape the building upon its Christian consecration. By the sixteenth century, concerns were more prosaic. A scheme for covering th
e oculus to prevent water infiltration had been mooted in 1591, during the brief papacy of Innocent IX Facchinetti (October to December 1591) under the architectural guidance of Giacomo Della Porta.44 Della Porta knew the potentially destructive power of rainwater and must have been especially concerned about it, as he had brought the Acqua Vergine to the piazza in front of the Pantheon and constructed the fountain there in 1575.45 His scheme for covering the oculus took the form of a wooden lantern to be covered by lead. With the same proposal, Della Porta also advocated the construction of a new sewer for drainage around the exterior perimeter of the rotunda. With Innocent IX’s death, however, the proposals came to nothing.

  By contrast, Alexander’s project was considerably more sophisticated and came with greater resolution for its construction. The Alexandrine project called for a system of glass pieces arranged “in the manner of fish scales” over a low, conical framework of metal splayed around the points of a star-shaped termination, reminiscent of the pope’s family symbol (Fig. 10.9). Repeatedly mentioned in the last year of the pontificate, it was to be installed by using the same scaffolding erected to mount the decorative stuccoes in the coffers of the dome. Noted in April 1667, less than a month before Alexander’s death, the mission to close the oculus of the Pantheon once again came to an inglorious conclusion, and the eye to the sky remained uninterrupted.46