The Franklin Institute
Domed rotunda modeled on the Pantheon, home to a twenty-foot marble statue of a Founding Father.
This guide to The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia takes you into a rotunda copied from the Pantheon in Rome, where a twenty-foot marble Benjamin Franklin sits enthroned rather than tinkering with a kite. It follows sculptor James Earle Fraser, better known for the buffalo nickel and End of the Trail, through six years of work on this single figure between 1932 and 1938, and the ninety-two tons of veined Portuguese marble beneath him. You'll hear how long Congress waited before naming this the official national memorial, decades after Fraser's chisel went quiet. Stand back far enough to take in the whole dome at once.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.