Pantheon

What it is

The Pantheon stands on Piazza della Rotonda in the middle of old Rome, and it is two things at once: a Roman temple and a working Catholic church. The Ministry of Culture's own account dates its foundation to between 25 and 27 BCE, when Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, son-in-law of the emperor Augustus, built a temple dedicated to all the gods. That building was damaged in 80 and again in 110 CE, and the structure a visitor walks into today is Hadrian's reconstruction of 118 to 125 CE. The inscription across the pediment still reads M. AGRIPPA L F COS TERTIUM FECIT, Marcus Agrippa son of Lucius, consul for the third time, made this: Hadrian rebuilt the temple and left the founder's name on the front of it.

The second life began in 609 CE, when the Byzantine emperor Phocas gave the building to Pope Boniface IV and it was consecrated as the Basilica of Santa Maria ad Martyres. It has been a church ever since, which is why services interrupt the visiting day and why the dress code is enforced. Management is shared: an agreement between the Ministry of Culture and the Diocese of Rome, signed on 10 April 2026, governs the monument jointly. The Ministry sells the entrance ticket; the Chapter of Santa Maria ad Martyres runs the welcome service inside.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

What's inside

The building is essentially one room, and the numbers the Ministry publishes explain why it holds attention anyway. Sixteen Corinthian columns of grey and pink granite carry the pronaos. The bronze-lined door behind them is 7.53 metres high and about 4.90 metres wide, and each of its two leaves weighs seven tonnes. Past it the rotunda opens: a circular hall 43.44 metres across and exactly as tall, so the interior would contain a sphere. The coffered dome closes on an oculus roughly nine metres wide, open to the sky with no glazing over it, and the Ministry describes the shaft of light that crosses the floor through the day as an astronomical clock. Nothing else in the room competes with it.

Around the wall are chapels and tombs, and the artworks in them run from the Renaissance to the Baroque. Raphael is buried here, as are kings of the House of Savoy. Beneath and beside the rotunda lie the spaces of the Basilica of Neptune, which are not part of the ordinary visit: they open only on the special tour the Ministry sells as Oltre il Pantheon, forty-five minutes in Italian or English, ten euros on top of the entrance ticket, with no reductions except for under-eighteens.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

How long to spend

Forty-five minutes is a fair figure to put in a day's plan, and that is what this site records. The Pantheon is one room, so there is no route to walk and no wing to miss; what takes the time is standing under the oculus long enough to watch the light move, working around the wall past the tombs and the chapels, and reading the inscriptions in the pronaos on the way in or out.

The operator's own products bracket the range. The Chapter's official audio tour has fifteen listening points totalling about thirty minutes of audio, which is the shortest complete visit anyone is likely to make. Its guided tour runs about fifty minutes, and the Basilica of Neptune tour is timed at forty-five minutes plus the rotunda itself. Twenty minutes is enough if the aim is simply to see the dome and leave.

Add queueing time separately. Entry is by hourly slot and the Ministry states plainly that no skip-the-line product exists, so the wait at the door is whatever the door is doing when you arrive. Budget an extra twenty to thirty minutes in the middle of a summer day, and almost none in the first slot.

Checked 2026-08-26

Season and crowds

The Pantheon is open every day of the week from 09:00 to 19:00. Last admission is 18:30, and 18:00 for groups and schools; the Ministry's ticketing system sells hourly slots from 09:00-10:00 through to a final short 18:00-18:30 slot, which is a useful way to read the day. Note one inconsistency at source: the Chapter's opening-hours page prints 18:45 as the last entry in its main text while the same page's sidebar and the Ministry both say 18:30. Plan on 18:30.

The two operators also publish different closure lists. The Chapter names 1 January, 15 August and 25 December; the Ministry's ticketing page names only 25 December. Treat all three dates as doubtful and check before travelling on them.

Hours shift around liturgical celebrations. During a service, entry to the basilica is free and open for worship, and ticket sales stop one hour before each celebration begins. The first slot of the morning is the quietest hour of the day and the last two are the next quietest. The first Sunday of every month is free, which also makes it the busiest Sunday of the month.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Tickets

Entry has been ticketed since July 2023. The full-price ticket is 7.00 euro. It rose from 5.00 euro on 1 July 2026 under the Ministry-Diocese agreement of 10 April 2026, and the live ticketing system charges 7.00 euro today; parts of the Ministry's own information text still print the old 5.00 euro figure beside the note announcing the increase, so expect to see both numbers on official pages. The reduced ticket is 2.00 euro. Free admission applies to the categories set out in current Italian regulations and to certified tour guides, and the first Sunday of each month is free for everyone.

Tickets are sold online or on site, for a named person, and the Ministry is explicit that there is no skip-the-line option of any kind. At the door a visitor must show the original ticket in full together with an identity document, and entry is refused if the name does not match. The name, date or time slot can be changed once, up to 72 hours before the visit. Individual bookings cover one to nine people; groups run from ten to twenty-six including the guide. If the emailed ticket does not arrive, the payment receipt showing the name, date and time is accepted at the entrance.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Getting there

The address is Piazza della Rotonda, 00186 Rome, and the operator gives two ways in. By metro, the nearest station is Barberini on line A, about 700 metres away, which is a ten-minute walk through the streets behind the Trevi Fountain. By bus, lines 30, 40, 62, 64, 81, 87 and 492 all stop at Largo di Torre Argentina, about 400 metres to the south-west.

Notably, the operator publishes no driving route and no parking information at all. That is the honest answer to whether a car is needed: it is not, and nothing on the official pages assumes one. The Pantheon sits in the pedestrian heart of the historic centre, and every approach to the portico is on foot.

Visitors who have booked the Chapter's audio tour or guided tour collect tickets elsewhere before entering, at the OhMyGuide Roma Museum Store, Via dei Bergamaschi 49, which the operator measures as a 350-metre walk of about five minutes from the monument. Anyone with an ordinary Ministry ticket goes straight to the Pantheon's own entrance and needs no detour.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

What to watch out for

This is a consecrated church and the rules are enforced at the door. Shoulders must be covered. Food, drink and animals are not allowed inside, the exceptions being guide dogs and documented service animals. Smoking is prohibited, and mobile devices may be used only for photographs and video, not for calls. Behaviour is expected to be quiet.

The ticket rules catch people out more often than the dress code. Tickets are nominative and valid only on the day of the visit; the original ticket and a matching identity document are both required, and the Ministry states that access is denied when the two do not correspond. Only one change of name, date or time slot is permitted, and only up to 72 hours before.

Groups have their own conditions. Where six or more visitors enter together with a tour guide, radio guides or whisper systems are compulsory for the whole visit. Licensed guides enter free once their licence is checked, while tour leaders holding an ordinary licence are not permitted to give guided commentary inside the monument. Finally, do not buy a skip-the-line pass from anyone in the square: the Ministry says no such product exists.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Photography

Everything here is a question of one light source. The oculus is the only opening in the dome, so the interior is a single bright shaft falling on a dark coffered ceiling and a dim curved wall. Cameras that meter for the whole frame will blow out the disc of sky and leave the rest black. Meter for the coffers and let the oculus burn, or bracket and accept that the sky is white.

The beam travels through the day. In the morning it lies high on the western wall, at midday it drops towards the floor, and in the late afternoon it climbs the eastern side. Pick the hour for the shot rather than the shot for the hour. A wide lens is close to essential indoors, since the rotunda is 43 metres across and there is no way to step back from it.

Rain is worth staying for: it falls straight through the oculus in a visible column and drains away through the floor. Outside, the portico photographs best in the early morning, before the square fills. Casual photography is permitted; the operator requires prior authorisation for professional shoots.

Checked 2026-08-26

Where it is

Nearby

External links

• View on Wikidata