The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1880-03-12

Benedict XIV committed the last spolia-
tion in taking away all the precious mar
bles that lined the vast attic. Never
theless, SO grand is the conception of this
building and so perfect its proportions
that do not see or feel the loss of these
Incidents The temple stands there yet
as it came from the brain of its un-
known architect. You do not see the
mutilation and scars of the warning een-
turies. The temple stands sublime in
the grandeur of It's simplicity. This
most effective of all buildings for wor-
ship is In its interior simple dome,,
supported by plain round wall; no cor
ridors, no naves, no transepts, nothing to-
break the force and simplicity of the
idea. There is but one great door, whose
massive bronze folds close in with the
line of the wall and seem part of it.
There are no windows, but the light
streams in from great circular opening
in the center of the dome, twenty-eight
feet in diameter, never closed, flooding
every recess and every portion with an
equal ray. There is something wonder
fully effective in this idea, which puts
the temple, as it were, in direct commu-
nication with the skies of heaven, and
makes it already the threshold and vesti
bule of the other world. It impresses
one at once as the natural conception of
place of worship. This world, with all
its little noise and struggles. is utterly
shut out and closed from you. You look
up and see the clouds with the birds in
them sail by. The rains Of heaven fall
on the porphyry pavement at your feet
and lie there.
They are of God, and come into His
house. Or the warm sunshine streams in
and rests on some chosen. altar-a golden
pathway on which the angels ascend and
descend. In, the night the moon and the
stars look in and watch with men the
still shrines and voiceless tombs. 1t isa
temple where God is in communion with
man, and speaks without liturgy or
formulated ceremony. There is such a
unity Of effect with nothing to detraet or
divide attention--it is 50 light and cheer
full and calm and loving that you feel
you are in the house of the living God
and loving Father and not the God of
death and the grave-the feeling which
steals over one in the gloomy shadows of
the Gothic cathedral. In the timesof the
ancient worship there was probably only
one altar in this temple. There are now
about dozen, breaking up the unity of
design and interfering with the uncon-
| oo;o,,a oo,,aoptsDp of nur Gnd
.Ihave attempted to outline the simple
grandeur and majesty Of this temple as
It sprang into life-the best development
of ancient Roman art and civilization.
Of old the Pantheon stood in an elegant
and spacious quarter Of the city, and was
raised on a slight elevation which gave
its symmetrical form proper effect.
To-day it is found in the distant and
most squalid portion of Rome-the Ghet-
to, from which it is not far off, excepted
and below the level of the ground.
The fight of steps by which it was orig
inally approached is buried absolutely,
and you step down from the wretched
modern piazzi on to the floor of the an
cient portico, the finest of its kind in the
world. 1t is the center of a network of
narrow and confusing Roman streets,
many of them not the width of our al
leys, lined continuously with high stone
buildings, densely packed with people,
full of foul smells and offensive dirt of
all kinds.
Old houses lean up against a portion
of the walls and are built into it, and
beggars camp all day around and among
its Corinthian columns. During the mid
die ages these grand columns had booths
and stands built into them and veget-
ables and cheap meats were sold literally
in the gates. How has, the glory of the
old temple departed, and how great must
be its inherent power that it still retains
its beauty and it's dignity. For the study
of architects and builders | give the pro.
portions of the main lines of this build
ing, which are as wonderful in their sim.
plicity as the building is itself in its ef.
feet. The interior, remember, is pure
rotunda, simply covered with a dome
Diameter of rotunda, 142 feet; from foo,
to top of dome, 143 feet; height of dome
711 feet-or just one-half Of the whole
, elevation.
The diameter is, given from inside
measurements. The wallsof the Pantheon
are said to be 20 feet wide. The grea
dome of St. Peters is 139 feet in diane
ter at it's base, three feet less than tn,
Pantheon, but it is vastly higher, tn edis
tance from the top of the cross on tn,
dome to the floor of the church being Az
feet. 1t was Michael Angeles boast il
buildingsSt. Peters that he would swing
the Pantheon in the air, and he has don,
it. But the Pantheon is grande
church than St. Peters to-day. It is
wonder, while ST. Peters is an eeclesias
tical labyrinth, ,and, greater than all, it il
the place in which God has been contin
uously worshiped for nineteen hundred
years.