Oldest door still in use in Rome, at the Pantheon. Cast in bronze for emperor Hadrian’s rebuilding, it dates from about 115 AD. Each door is solid bronze 2.3 m wide & 7.5 m high, yet so well balanced they can be pushed or pulled open easily by one person.

40 comments

  1. The large bronze doors to the *cella* (inner chamber) of the Pantheon, measuring 4.45m wide by 7.53m high, are the oldest in Rome.

    These were thought to be a 15th-century replacement for the original, mainly because they were deemed by contemporary architects to be too small for the door frames.

    However, analysis of the fusion technique confirmed that these are the original Roman doors, a rare example of Roman monumental bronze surviving, despite cleaning and the application of Christian motifs over the course of centuries.

  2. Standing inside the Pantheon just resets your notion of time, looking up at the dome ceiling knowing and coming to terms with the fact that this huge building is a couple of thousand of years old. Truly amazing.

  5. Architectural marvel, the best-preserved of all Ancient Rome’s buildings, in continuous use throughout its 1900 years history.

  8. Its my absolute favorite building, don’t get to visit it as often as I would like. It’s amazing in so many different ways, and its still in use, almost two millennia after it was built. Once played backgammon on the floor between the columns next to the door against a street hustler just for the experience, figured the €20 was lost as soon as I sat down, just wanted the memory of having done it.

  18. If you like stuff about the oldest buildings in Rome, or the remnants of them, I recommend checking out [Toldinstone on youtube](https://youtube.com/c/toldinstone). He also comments on r/askhistorians and such with the same name. He covers not only the big famous Roman buildings but also things more humble and less… obvious. It is interesting how antiquity sometimes hides in plain sight.

    Also, were the gladiators actually fat? 🤔

  20. This door is over a thousand years old and still works perfectly, meanwhile the door I bought at Ikea saggs after 1 year…

  21. My bathroom door is not even 10 years old and it’s already not closing properly.

  22. Amazing that the door still survives, since the people of the middle ages melted almost anything made of bronze. I guess the Pantheon being turned into a church saved it

  23. That’s a good photo. There’s another monumental set of bronze doors in the Roman Forum, a building now used as a church. I made my first visit to Rome in June. The Pantheon impressed. The concrete dome is a marvel. The great Renaissance domes (Duomo in Florence and Michelangelo’s St. Peters) are masonry.

  24. Me: “Wow, I can’t believe that piece of code I wrote 15 years ago is still in production. Must have done something right.”

    Marcus Titus Aedifex: “Tene cervesiam meam, frater!”

  26. This is only partially true; they are the oldest doors in Rome still in use at their original place. The actual oldest doors still in use in Rome are the doors to the Basilica of St. John of Lateran; these are the old doors of the Curia Julia (Senate building on the Forum), constructed under emporer Domitian in the first century CE.

  27. And here i was thinking the ashen one was a beast for pushing those huge ass doors in dark souls 3. Turns out its just easy af

  35. That is absolutely incredible. As a young carpenter I was frustrated hanging doors in crooked houses in the hills of San Francisco. But I knew I needed a niche and since every house has at least one door there would always be a job for me. Replacing old doors with new can be very difficult and improperly installed doors diont show always show right away. The fact it is a stone frame and metal door is advantageous since they have little if any seasonal or moisture effects I know of. I wish I could see the hinges. I can’t imagine how it was hung but this is amazing. Thank you.

  36. I thought that the average height of a human has grown over time but that’s obviously a lie, because judging by these doors people used to be absolutely fucking massive.

  37. I am glad that I had the opportunity to walk through those doors! The funny thing about Rome for me was that the surviving buildings seemed more like a few hundred years old instead of a few thousand.

  38. You mean ancient Roman doors really did look like in the movies, massive and imposing?

    Why did gigantic doors go out of fashion? You don’t really see them on medieval buildings.

  39. Also, the largest unsupported concrete dome for millenia. When Michaelangelo was designing St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, he purposely made the dome 10ft smaller than the Pantheon as a sign of respect.

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