Interesting facts about the Pantheon

Today I learned some very interesting things about the Pantheon. The base building of the Pantheon has nineteen foot thick walls to support the amazing dome that sits upon them. These huge walls definitely affect the climate inside, it is undoubtedly cooler inside the Pantheon than outside. The door also allows a nice breeze to circulate the room if there is any wind outside at all. The roof of the dome has these precise and beautiful layered squares that cover the ceiling in rows and columns (as you can see in the pictures below). I also found out today that the ceiling was carved this way not just for aesthetic reasons but because it made the dome so much lighter in weight and there was concern about the below structure cracking under all of the pressure. It was raining really hard today and while the hole in the dome is covered the rain still leaks in a little but so it was interesting to see the floor all wet in a roped off area. I have been wondering why the center was always roped off, now I know. I can't help but wonder why nobody cleaned up the puddles. This is a picture of the hole in the center of the ceiling and if you look closely you can see the designs around it.