Teatro Valle

The emperor Hadrian (A.D 117-138) never inscribed his name to any building but one, the temple of his father Trajan. Which is why his replacement for the burnt down Pantheon that Marcus Agrippa had built bears the legend:
"M. AGRIPPA.L.F.COS TERTIUM.FECIT”
“Marcus Agrippa son of Lucius, in his 3rd Consulship, made it”.
Brick stamps on the side of the building reveal it to have been constructed between A.D 118 and 125; classified as a temple though of a competely different form to other ones in Rome.
They built the structure on marshland on 8 solid piers supporting a series of intersecting arches.
The dome is made from pozzolana cement – cement made by grinding together lime and a volcanic product found at Pozzuoli - constructed in tapering courses or steps that are thickest at the base (20 feet) and thinnest at the oculus (7.5 feet). .
The density of the material decreases in height as well: from aggregates like basalt at the base, then a mixture of travertine and tufa, then tufa and brick, then all brick was used around the drum section of the dome, and finally pumice, the lightest and most porous of materials on the ceiling of the dome.
The dome is lightened by coffering, which gives it the square scalloped look, and by the 8m wide oculus, which also allows light to enter. Finally, empty clay jugs were embedded into the dome’s upper courses.
The dimensions of the interior height and the diameter of the dome are the same: 145 Roman feet or 43.2m making it the largest dome in the world until very recently. Mathematically and geometrically it can only be described as elegant, although Michelangelo reputedly remarked that it seemed of “angelic and not human design.”
I could have stayed here for a long tie learning about its construction and seeing how the design fitted together so perfectly.
OTOH I was not too sure about this piece of art in an exhibition being held there.Read more