The Piazza della Rotonda is a piazza (city square) in Rome, Italy, on the south side of which is located the Pantheon. The square gets its name from the Pantheon’s informal title as the church of Santa Maria Rotonda.
Although the Pantheon has stood from antiquity, the area in front of it had over the centuries become choked with a maze of sheds and small shops that had grown up around its columns. These medieval accretions were cleared by order of Pope Eugenius IV (1431–39) and the piazza was laid out and paved.[1] It took its name from the Pantheon, which had been converted in the 7th century AD into a Christian church dedicated to “St. Mary and the Martyrs” but informally known as Santa Maria Rotonda.
In the center of the piazza is a fountain, the Fontana del Pantheon, surmounted by an Egyptian obelisk. The fountain was constructed by Giacomo Della Porta under Pope Gregory XIII in 1575, and the obelisk was added to it in 1711 under Pope Clement XI.
#Rome,#TerriButlerPhotography,#photography
