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Marcus Agrippa's Pantheon is one of the world's most sublime
architectural creations: a perfectly proportioned floating
dome resting on an elegant drum of columns and pediments.
It was built in 27 BC, and rebuilt by Emperor Hadrian in
120 AD.
The temple has been consistently plundered and damaged
over the years; it lost its beautiful gilded bronze roof
tiles in Pope Gregory III's time. Its extraordinary dome
is the largest masonry vault ever built.
After being abandoned under the first Christian emperors,
the Pantheon was converted into a church in 609 and
dedicated to the Madonna and all the martyrs.
The Italian kings Victor Emmanuel II and Umberto I
and the artist Raphael are buried here.
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