Dome

Frontal view of the Renaissance Barberini Palace, from the south lateral upper terrace, on axis; Praeneste was chiefly famed for its great Temple of Fortuna Primigenia connected with the oracle known as the Praenestine lots (sortes praenestinae). The temple was redeveloped after 82 BC as a spectacular series of terraces, exedras and porticos on four levels down the hillside, linked by monumental stairs and ramps. The inspiration for this feat of unified urbanistic design lay, not in republican Rome, but in the Hellenistic monarchies of the eastern Mediterranean. Praeneste offered a foretaste of the grandiose Imperial style of the following generation. The oldest portion of the primitive sanctuary was situated on the terrace just above the lowest one, in a grotto in the natural rock where there was a spring that developed into a well. Source: Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed 7/12/2008)