Travels in the 2nd half

  On my last day in Rome I visited the Pantheon . It was a great way finish my trip, with journey into Rome’s past. The word pantheon means temple to all the gods. That describes not only the original purpose of the building, but also its history up to today. The original temple was constructed between 29-19 BCE by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa , a Roman general. It was built to be a place to worship all of the gods of the Roman belief system. That building, and its replacement were both destroyed by fires, with only its facade and entryway surviving. In 114 CE, the emperor Trajan ordered the Pantheon rebuilt and hired Apollodorus of Damascus to design it. The temple was finished by Emperor Hadrian sometime after 117 CE. In 609 CE, the structure was consecrated as a Catholic basilica in the name of Saint Mary and the Martyrs, a role that it still holds today. As such, the Pantheon is considered to be the oldest, continuously used, religious building in the western world. "Marcus Agripp...

Palazzo Barberini   Like many cities in Europe, Rome has taken many of its old palaces and turned them into museums. The Palazzo Barberini is and excellent example, now using the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica (National Gallery of Antique Art). The Palazzo Barberini was built between 1625 and 1633 by Maffeo Barberini, who had recently been anointed as Pope Urban VIII. The Barberini family were nobility and made their fortune as trade merchants. It was around this time that they created a workshop that created tapestries. The Barberini family lived in the palazzo until 1955. The Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica was founded in 1893. In 1883 Tomaso Corsini sold his palace to the Italian government, along with his entire collection of paintings. This collection formed the original gallery and was housed in the Palazzo Corsini, where it is still on the walls, the way the Corsini family had them arranged. Over the years the museum grew, and in 1953 Italy purchased the Palazzo Barberin...