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Pantheon, Rome

The Pantheon was a temple dedicated to all the gods built by Agrippa in 27BC. In AD80 it was damaged by fire and restored by Domitian. Then Emperor Hadrian (117-38) rebuilt it. The temple was closed in the 4C by the first Christian Emperors but in 608 it was reopened and converted into a church dedicated to S. Mary ad Martyres. The Pantheon presents an hemispherical dome, whose hole at the top provides the the only light. Today, one of the chapel inside, contains the tomb of Vittorio Emanuele II (1820-78), the first king of unified Italy and the tomb of Raphael (who died at 37 years old in 1520).