Pantheon Guided Tour in 45 Minutes, with the Chapels and the Tombs

Forty-five minutes, which is enough for the Pantheon if the guide knows what to leave out. The walk starts in Piazza della Minerva by Bernini's elephant, moves to the front of the Pantheon for the portico and the Corinthian columns, and goes in on reserved entry. Inside, this tour is specific about what it shows rather than sweeping. The coffered dome and the open oculus, the marble flooring, then the chapels: the Chapel of the Annunciation and the Chapel of the Madonna of Clemency. The statues of Jupiter, Venus and Mars. The tombs of Raphael, of Victor Emmanuel II and of Queen Margherita. The guide also covers the Barberini connection, which is the least flattering chapter the building has. Urban VIII, born Maffeo Barberini, had the bronze stripped from the portico ceiling and sent most of it to the cannon foundry. Romans answered with a line still quoted today: what the barbarians did not do, the Barberini did. The history runs from ancient Rome to the present, because the building never stopped being used.