Pantheon

I met an American family when I was at lunch the other day and the mother was asking me advice about what to see in Rome and I started telling her my favorite things (the Capuchin Crypt, St. Giovanni’s, etc.) I mentioned the Pantheon and she said they had already been there and her younger daughter was a little creeped out by this dead guy they saw so she tried to tell her daughter that it must be someone really important otherwise they wouldn’t be in the Pantheon so she shouldn’t be disturbed by it. I asked her who it was that they were seeing and she said she wasn’t sure but she described it to me and it didn’t take long for me to realize that she was referring to Raphael. When I told her I thought she was going to faint. She had no idea that he was in the Pantheon and she clamored on about how much she loved him and Michelangelo and how fantastic it is that he is buried there. I just had to laugh, it is really crazy to think how people don’t even realize (myself included) some of the most amazing things they’re seeing, especially when it is the things that are especially interesting to them and if nobody told them, they’d never have the experience that was right in front of their faces.