 Rome this week, let's examine the pantheon. Starting off in the southern end with this gigantic structure that most people ignore. This is the structure containing the Grectone, a series of relieving walls buttressing up the southern side of the Britonda, conceived of in the midst of the construction of the pantheon. And we can look down here and already see the implementation of these relieving arches. Now when we take a look at the relieving arches over this doorway, for example, we can see it's a double row of Bipodales. So as tall as each of the Roman brick is that we see, it is deep. These are two feet by two feet, massive bricks. So we want to think of them essentially replacing the work of stone. We can also see a series of holes and it's going to be part of the telltale signs that there was indeed marble veneer on the original outer portion of the pantheon. But as we look up we can see that so much of the brickwork has been refaced in the modern era. So this kind of chipped effect on the brick is telling us that these bricks indeed are modern refacing. A lot of the bricks have been either robbed out or fallen out over time. But then with the trained eye we can identify then an original portion and that original portion right here has the small almost bullet holes here and there that are the telltale signs that there were metal pins holding in place panels of marble originally. So let's walk around the pantheon today. Beautiful cold January morning. We make our way to the front porch. Here we get a good view of the transition block that is another important construction feature of the pantheon. So we have our porch and that's solid columns of granite, big veneer blocks of marble. But up above it is this transition block which is passive and a kind of important juncture between the rotunda and the porch necessary according to the engineers of the pantheon. It is just something that we'll be able to admire from different sections as we make our way today around the pantheon. This temple dedicated to the gods. It's also about the deification of the emperor. This is the third version constructed here and we can see some of the refinements damaged over time but for temples it's not unusual to see these renderings of garlands of fruits and flowers. Some details you might have missed as you admired and entered the pantheon and we can also take a look at our ground level. We do actually have some of the ground level preserved for the pantheon and of course the ground level has gone up and we have a piazza today which as a ground level much higher than the ground level of the original times of Hadrianic Rome. This is one of our windows into how Rome's built in layers and you can see also for the podium as we do expect for most Roman temples there being a podium it was also faced in marble and then we kind of pivot back again to the street level today. So you can say that the pantheon really is in a pit. Gorgeous columns from Aswan the pink and the gray is from Mons Claudianus both in Egypt. It's a beautiful quiet morning here. Beautiful beautiful evening. Beautiful beautiful morning. Just some little local foot traffic here. This obelisk would have belonged to the Aesium temple of Isis which is not too far from this location. We'll make our way around the pantheon. It's too often we just rush inside and it's worth really getting a sense of scale. Getting a sense of how it's a big part of the neighborhood. We can another view here of our transition block. So what you have from the ground up is you see some windows staircase that takes you up up up up up to the roof. So there's a lot of functionality going on in the transition block. We can also see the original intended pediment much higher and then now we have the lower pediment. Famous interpretation is a double pediment because with that higher pediment imprint the intention was to have bigger columns for a bigger roof of the porch and we're left with the smaller columns which are impressive nonetheless. It's another thing to keep in mind is that this does not exist in a vacuum but we're actually looking right here at the walls of the site dump which is a voting hall. Republican and dates last rebuilt here after the fire 410 that also saw the reconstruction of the pantheon. So you can just see this large wall which would have been part of a covered walkway that abuts the pantheon. If we look over the pantheon we can also see on the side of this podium section there's actually the marble that's intact along this portion of the podium. So lots of little details. We can glean from taking a good look at the pantheon and not rushing around. So the Cypda. Cypda is such an important structure. Two long covered walkways, two porticoats. This is one of the walls of them and in the center a huge area for voting 300 meters by about 80 meters. So this really represented an important structure in republican Rome and it becomes an important area for shopping in imperial Rome. So they keep the Cypda but the purpose changes. We're around in the corner and now we're behind the Grittoni structure. This is now actually another structure which goes underneath this building to the left. It's a massive hall known as the Basilica of Neptune. First built by Agrippa, last built here in the final phase of the pantheon. Some decoration because there are stylized dolphins and tritons. We think we feel confident that this is a rebuild of the of the Basilica first built by Agrippa to celebrate his victories. Some large apps. They'd be a probably a cult statue but if it's a basilica we're thinking of law courts. So a walk around the pantheon on a beautiful January morning. Thanks for joining me for Rome this week.