Rotonda

The Rotonda is a massive, circular brick building in central Thessaloniki, easily identified by the slender minaret rising from its northwest corner. Constructed around three hundred six AD by the Roman emperor Galerius, the structure features walls more than six meters thick and a dome that reaches nearly thirty meters into the air. It was originally built as part of an imperial palace complex that included a nearby triumphal arch and a hippodrome, though historians still debate whether it was intended as a mausoleum for the emperor or a temple to the Roman gods.