The Interior of the Pantheon

Light pours from the great round oculus of the Pantheon's dome onto the coffered ceiling and marble floor, where tiny visitors are dwarfed by the vast cylinder of ancient Roman space. Giovanni Paolo Panini, the master of the architectural view, renders the building with near-photographic precision and a showman's sense of grandeur, every niche and column exact. Now in Washington, it belongs to the great age of the 'veduta,' painted views that fed the appetite of Grand Tourists hungry to carry home the splendor of Rome's monuments.