Overview
The 'temple' can be seen, isolated and partly buried, between the road that now runs through Baia and its port facilities. It is difficult to believe that this really is an ancient sacred building: a temple of Venus must have existed in Baia, but so far no sure traces of it have been found. It is in any case a building more than twenty-five metres in diameter, most probably the main hall of a larger complex that is long disppeared. Its size and structural elegance have intrigued travellers and designers for centuries: among them was Andrea Palladio, who did much to incorporate classical construction into modern western architecture.
Scholars have always been intrigued by the many inventive structural aspects of the building: an octagonal exterior plan that becomes circular on the inside, the dome composed of segments like those of an umbrella, and the architecture of the roof itself. Materials of increasing lightness were used to build it in order to reduce the load in the parts most at risk of collapse.
