Pantheon, Paris

“ Voltaire and Mirabeau were the first to be entombed in the Panthéon as it then came to be called. Reconsecrated and resecularized more than once during the 19th century, the building finally regained its present name in 1885, when Victor Hugo was buried there. The Panthéon is an imposing domed building in the form of a Greek cross. The tympanum above the portico by David d'Angers and, in the interior, paintings of the life of Ste Geneviève by Puvis de Chavannes are features of its artistic decoration.
Various public bodies occupy mansions and palaces built under the ancient régime. ”

“ Narrow and uneven, the Rue des Carmes ascends toilingly between shops whose paint has been streaked by storms, faded by dust and wind; and yet it continues to be full of charm and poetry, this sorry-looking street, crowned at the top by the august proportions of the Panthéon, and framing at the bottom, with its two lines of dingy houses, mean hotels, and dancing-rooms, the delicate and elegant spire of Notre-Dame aloft on the horizon of the clear sky. ”

“ Jacques of the Philip Augustus wall. We are now on the Mount of St. Genevieve, crowned by the majestic and eminent Panthéon, whose pediment is adorned by David d'Angers' sculptures, representing La Patrie, between Liberty and History, distributing crowns to her children. Among the figures are Malesherbes, Voltaire, Rousseau, Mirabeau, Carnot, Bonaparte, behind whom stand an old grenadier and the famous drummer-boy of Arcole.
The Panthéon has the most magnificent situation and, except the new church of the Sacré Cœur, is the most dominant building in Paris. ”

“ Pantheon, a temple in Rome, first erected by Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus, circular in form, 150 ft. in height, with niches all round for statues of the gods, to whom in general it was dedicated; it is now a church, and affords sepulture to illustrious men. Also a building in Paris, originally intended to be a church in honour of the patron saint of Paris, but at the time of the Revolution converted into a receptacle for the ashes of the illustrious dead, Mirabeau being its first occupant, and bearing this inscription, Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissant ”

“ I know nothing like it anywhere: the Pantheon (ci-devant Ste. Geneviève) , with all its nobleness and majesty, is heavy, and almost clumsy, when compared to it. Though possessing no religious solemnity whatever, and in this respect inferior beyond the reach of comparison to the choir of Cologne, or King's College Chapel at Cambridge, it nevertheless produces a stronger effect upon the senses than either of them. ”

“ That may perhaps be an advantage; if nothing is done, there can be nothing to regret. But the French have acted otherwise, and the Panthéon embellishment is almost an accomplished fact.
With one or two exceptions, the painting of the church has been confided to artists with reputations, wearers of the palm-embroidered coats; the procession of decorators being led by Baron Gros and Gérard, who covered the dome with pictures in the false, pretentious style of the First Empire, leaving it a glowing mass of bad taste, as a warning to their successors. ”

“ The borders are formed of garlands of flowers in a low scale of colour, which are divided at regular intervals by tablets bearing inscriptions and monograms. On the whole, the decoration of the Panthéon gives little encouragement to other nations who are desirous of covering large surfaces of wall in their public buildings. The art seems to be lost; for if the greatest of the French painters have, from one reason and another, failed to produce an harmonious scheme of decoration, who is likely to succeed? ”

“ This account, however, is inaccurate; it was only Marat’s effigy which was thrown into the sewer, his relics were transported to Saint-Étienne-du-Mont.
In the meantime the Panthéon, as a structure, was in a state of neglect. These installations of illustrious men within its walls had taken place more or less hastily, and the works were far indeed from completion. Mercier, in his “Picture of Paris,” thus describes a visit which he paid to the Panthéon in 1795: “I ventured on the staircases of the edifice, across ladders, heaps of cement, hammers, long saws and moving scaffoldings. ”

“ It was not probable that so artistic a nation as the French would allow such a building to remain in an incomplete state; they would rather run the risk of perpetuating failure than leave the work undone. We English are different. S. Paul's is double the age of the Panthéon, and we are still squabbling over its decoration; we hang up designs and drag them down again, we lay out enormous sums in the embellishment of the altar, and then we spend ever so much more in trying to circumvent our neighbours, and get rid of the ornament. ”

“ Fair Paris caught the crimson hue —
Well may I call it fair,
With its pure heaven of softest blue,
Its clear and sunny air—
Soft fell the morning o’er each dome
That rises mid the sky;
And, conscious of the day to come,
Demand their place on high.
⁠7.
Round the Pantheon’s height was wrought
A web of royal red;
A glory as if morning brought
Its homage to the dead.
And Notre Dame’s old gothic towers
Were bathed in roseate bloom,
As Time himself had scattered flowers
Over that mighty tomb. ”

“ When thus perfect, it must have formed an interior of surpassing beauty, lighted as it was solely through the central eye, and the light tempered by the linen veil stretched across its rich bronze cornice, which still remains round the opening, and retains vestiges of gilding. The Pantheon can scarcely be called a daring effort of construction, because its vast solidity seems to defy all doubts as to its duration. ”

“ Peter’s affords the best sample of modern art in Rome178, so does the Pantheon exhibit the most satisfactory and best-preserved specimen of ancient art; for, notwithstanding the injuries it has sustained by the hands of barbarians of all ages, no signs of natural decay are yet visible; and with this magnificent model before their eyes, it appears strange, that the architects of St. Peter’s should not have accomplished [Pg 276] their task more worthily. The Pantheon seems to be the hemispherical summit of a modern temple, taken off and placed on the ground ”

“ Ruin, nearly everywhere in Rome, has to be very patient of the environment; and even the monuments of the past which are in comparatively good repair have not always the keeping that the past would probably have chosen for them. One that suffers as little as any, if not the very least, is the Pantheon, on whose glorious porch you are apt to come suddenly, either from a narrow street beside it or across its piazza, beyond the fountain fringed with post-card boys and their bargains. In spite of them, the sight of the temple does mightily lift the heart ”

“ Of all the temples of the Romans, the Pantheon is by far the most original and typical, and as a rotunda it is unmatched in the ancient world. There is a simplicity about its proportions, the height being exactly equal to the width, and in the mode by which it is lighted through a single aperture in the roof, which gives it a character of grandeur that redeems the clumsiness of detail, which would nearly spoil any edifice less grand in conception. ”

“ As the same blue sky smiles upon the ruin which smiled upon the perfect structure, so the same beneficent Providence bends over our shattered hopes and our answered prayers. [Pg 29]
THE PANTHEON [9] BY GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD
The best preserved monument of ancient Rome, and one of the most beautiful buildings of the modern city, is unhappily placed. The Pantheon stands in a narrow and dirty piazza, and is shouldered and elbowed by a mob of vulgar houses. There is no breathing-space around, which it might penetrate with the light of its own serene beauty. ”

“ Not less remarkable than the noble planning and construction of this church was the treatment of scale and decoration in its interior design. It was as conspicuously the masterpiece of Byzantine architecture as the Parthenon was of the classic Greek. With little external beauty, it is internally one of the most perfectly composed and beautifully decorated halls of worship ever erected. Instead of the simplicity of the Pantheon it displays the complexity of an organism of admirably related parts. ”

“ Of the surviving edifices at Rome, the principal is the Pantheon itself. It still retains its majestic portico, and presents its graceful dome uninjured; the pavement laid by Agrippa and trodden by Augustus, still forms its floor; the compartments, and fluted pillars of rich marble, [187] that originally lined its walls, still adorn its inward circumference; the deep tints that age has thrown over it, only contribute to raise our dignity and augment our veneration ”

“ The spectacle so fascinates me sometimes that I cannot listen to the music. At such moments the Albert Hall faintly recalls a miniature Spanish bull-ring. It is a far-off resemblance, even farther than the resemblance of St. Paul's Cathedral, with its enclosed dome and its worrying detail, to the simple and superb strength of the Pantheon, which lives in memory through the years as a great consoling Presence, but it often comes to me and brings with it an inspiring sense of dignity and colour and light before which the actual spectacle grows dim. ”

“ They are good old masters of language. But, darling, do you know the 'Pantagruel?' ' Pantagruel' is like a beautiful and noble city, full of palaces, in the resplendent dawn, before the street-sweepers of Paris have come. The sweepers have not taken out the dirt, and the maids have not washed the marble steps. ”

“ The interior cornice at the bottom of the dome has been perfectly preserved, with its rich sculptures. The pavement of the Pantheon is of porphyry, alternating with other polished stones in geometric figures. Some antiquarians 632have argued that the Pantheon was originally an appendage of the baths of Agrippa, and that the portico was of subsequent construction, when the building was converted into a temple. ”

“ There is something very Gothic in the taste and judgment of a learned man, who despises the masterpiece of art, the Pantheon, for those very qualities which deserve our admiration. "Nous esmerveillons comme l'on fait si grand cas de ce Pantheon, veu que son edifice n'est de si grande industrie comme l'on crie: car chaque petit masson peut bien concevoir la maniere de sa façon tout en un instant: car estant la base si massive, et les murailles si espaisses, ne nous a semblé difficile d'y adjouster la vonte à claire voye."—Pierre Belon's Observations, &c. ”

“ Although the superiority of past ages has reduced the art of the present day to imitation, combined, in comparatively rare cases, with happy adaptation, it is, nevertheless, doubtful how far any architect who should make an actual copy of so well-known a building as the Pantheon at Rome, and set it up in one of the most conspicuous positions in London, would be justified in so doing, or would merit popular approbation, even though he acted with the same “bonâ fidesbonâ fides” as Mr. ”

“ It is very strange that the Catholic Church must apologize to the world for simply declaring that she speaks the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
The Roman Pantheon was dedicated to all the gods of the Empire, and their name was legion. Formidable also in numbers are the Founders of the religious sects existing in our country. A Pantheon as vast as Westminster Abbey would hardly be spacious enough to contain life-sized statues for their accommodation. ”

“ The church of St.-Étienne-du-Mont is as fine as possible, a type of the kind of architecture which is no type and ought to have a new name—modern would be as good as any. It has a creamish-gray effect, exceedingly ornate, with all the artificery of a jewel box.
The Panthéon seemed strangely bare to me, large and spacious but cold. The men who are not there as much as the men who are, made it seem somewhat unrepresentative232 to me as a national mausoleum. It is hard to make a national burying-ground that will appeal to all. ”

“ The worshiped deities may be many or few, numberless as the Nature forces, polytheistic as among the Greeks and Romans, or one as in the monotheism of the Semite. Man likens them to himself, attributes to them not only his outward shape, but also his failings and virtues, making his Pantheon resemble not only the social order, but also the political system under which he happens to live. ”

“ The Parthenon and the Pantheon, those two great types of their respective ages, might be compared on the score of magnificence, but they were utterly devoid of resemblance as masterpieces of art. The quadrangular portico of the latter may be presumed to have been intended to signify the union of architectural powers; without some such reason the rectilinear front would not have been stuck before a circular edifice, and the egregious anomaly can be accounted for on no more plausible ground. ”

“ At Baalbec is a circular temple whose entablature curves inward between the widely-spaced columns until it touches the cella in the middle of each intercolumniation. It illustrates the caprices of design which sometimes resulted from the disregard of tradition and the striving after originality (273 A.D.) .
FIG. 54.—PLAN OF THE PANTHEON.
THE PANTHEON. The noblest of all circular temples of Rome and of the world was the Pantheon. It was built by Hadrian, 117–138 A.D., on the site of the earlier rectangular temple of the same name erected by Agrippa. ”

“ In my Pantheon, Pan still reigns in his pristine glory, with his ruddy face, his flowing beard, and his shaggy body, his pipe and his crook, his nymph Echo, and his chosen daughter Iambe; for the great God Pan is not dead, as was rumored. Perhaps of all the gods of New England and of ancient Greece, I am most constant at his shrine.
It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshipped in civilized countries is not at all divine, though he bears a divine name, but is the overwhelming authority and respectability of mankind combined. Men reverence one another, not yet God. ”