A large eye looking at the sky above Rome, a hole with a diameter of almost nine meters, is the Pantheon’s only window, and is always wide open.
It is thanks to the oculus that the weather and its innumerable variations have always been the protagonists of the structure. On April 21st, Rome’s birthday, a beam of life enters the Pantheon and lightens the entrance of the temple: astronomical studies have allowed the creation of this natural spotlight, used by the Emperor Augustus as a self-celebratory moment.
When it rains, the water enters the dome and flows away thanks to the holes present at the center and sides of the temple’s floor: legend tells, instead, that in the past the smoke and warmth of candles broke the raindrops and stopped them from reaching the ground.
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