Changes: San Giovanni in Laterano

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<place lat="41.88617" lon="12.50640" zoom="16" width="250" /> San Giovanni in Laterano is a heavily restored and remodelled 4th century basilica which is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome, having its address as Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano in the rione Monti. Pictures on Wikimedia Commons are here. An English Wikipedia page is here.

Name

The official name of the basilica in Italian is Santissimo Salvatore e Santi Giovanni Battista ed Evangelista in Laterano.

The principal dedication is, and always has been, to Christ our Saviour. Subsidiary dedications are to SS John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, hence the full name.

The usual familiar name in English is invariably "St John Lateran", and in Italian San Giovanni in Laterano. These will do for most purposes -but should be avoided in liturgical contexts.

Status

This is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome, of which the Pope is the reigning bishop. As a result, the Roman Catholic Church has named it "The Mother of All Churches" (Omnium ecclesiarum mater), and it has first place in honour of all churches ever built.

This is demonstrated on the façade, where a subsidiary inscription proclaims that Dogmate papali datur ac simul imperiali, quod sim cunctarum mater caput ecclesiarum ("It is given by Papal and Imperial decree that I am the mother and head of all churches").

Non-Catholics may find it odd that St Peter's is not the senior church, but this is because of the theory behind the authority held by the Pope. Catholics believe that bishops are the heirs of the College of the Apostles with St Peter as its head, so the Pope is the head of all the bishops by virtue of his being the heir of St Peter as Bishop of Rome. St Peter's is the preferred location for the exercise of the pope's universal authority over the entire Church, but St John Lateran is the location of the source of that authority.

This is the senior of the four major basilicas of Rome, the other three (on order of seniority) being San Pietro in Vaticano, San Paolo fuori le Mura and Santa Maria Maggiore. In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI abolished the title of “patriarchal basilica” formerly also given to these four churches.

St John Lateran is also the senior of the so-called Papal Basilicas which include, a well as these four, San Lorenzo fuori le Mura (also a former "patriarchal basilica") and two churches in Assisi the altars of which are reserved for celebrations of Mass by the Pope (except by special dispensation, which is actually routinely given).

A recent development has been the bestowal of the title of "archbasilica" (arcibasilica) to emphasize the church's primacy.

It has been parochial for centuries, but nowadays the parish is not based in the basilica itself but in the baptistery.

History

Ancient times

Antecedents

In Republican times the locality of the basilica was a convenient exurban open space outside the Porta Caelimontana in the old Servian Walls, which was used for casual recreational and military training activities. However, the area was becoming inner-suburban even before the Aurelian Walls enclosed it to the south. These were erected by AD 275, by which time some villas of wealthy people had already been erected in the neighbourhood. (The ancient Romans themselves called such an exurban house a villa urbana, because it was easily accessed from the city for a short country stay.)

The present Piazza di San Giovanni Laterano was an important road junction in ancient times. It is suggested (with some debate) that before the Aurelian Walls were erected the ancient main road of the Via Tusculana ran up the west side of the present basilical complex and along the present Via dei Quattro Coronati. This route was provided with a postern gate where the ancient city wall does a zig-zag, but traffic then mainly used the Porta Asinaria. The importance of this road is that the baptistery preserves the alignment in its major axis.

Laterani

The original source of the name Lateran was the family of the Laterani, which claimed descent from the 4th century BC consul Lucius Sextus Lateranus. It had a distinguished member in one Plautius Lateranus, who narrowly escaped with his life and phallus after having sex with Messalina the wife of Emperor Claudius but was then executed by Nero for suspicion of involvement in the conspiracy of Piso. According to Juvenal, the emperor then helped himself to the "impressive houses of the Laterani" which might (or might not) have included a residence here.

Whatever, it seems more certain that a villa here was granted to the consul Sextius Lateranus in AD 197 by his friend the emperor Septimius Severus. Whether this was a restitution or a simple gift, is for modern scholars to guess if they want to (the fashion nowadays is not to). This action by the emperor gave the name to the locality -however, the actual geographic term in Laterano is only unambiguously found in the sources from the 11th century.

Domus Faustae

The first documented evidence for a possible papal headquarters hereabouts is in a work by St Optatus of Milevis, an African writer. According to it, Pope Miltiades held a synod in the year 313 convenerunt in domum Faustae in "Laterani" [sic]. The editor of the critical edition of the saint's works unilaterally corrected the corrupt Laterani to Laterano, which is how the remark is usually copied and which gives the false impression that in Laterano was already a locality.

For centuries the lady Fausta, in whose house the synod convened, was identified with Fausta, the emperor Constantine's second wife who was herself a convert and a daughter of his defeated rival. However, to be noted are:

There is no evidence that this Fausta was the empress (the latter had not lived in Rome since she was a little girl). Neither is there any evidence that this Domus Faustae was the original house of the Laterani. Finally, there is no evidence that the Domus Fausti was donated to the pope to become the original papal palace. The pope might have borrowed the property for the day to hold the synod!

Villas

In Imperial times this locality on an outlier of the Caelian Hill counted as prestigious, and several large and palatial villa-type town houses have been excavated nearby.

Under the Ospedale di San Giovanni to the north-west was found in 1959 a very high-status residence in use from the 1st to the 4th centuries, thought to have been the residence of Domitia Lucilla the mother of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The suggested ownership of this house depends on the name of the empress being found on a piece of lead pipe near the obelisk in the Piazza di San Giovanni Laterano. This is important in the context of the basilica because it has been claimed as the original location of the famous equestrian statue of the emperor, which stood for centuries where the obelisk now is before being moved to the Campodoglio in 1538. Mediaeval people thought that it was of the emperor Constantine, and called it the Caballus Constantini. (The statue is now thought to have been near the Column of Marcus Aurelius in ancient times, which obviously makes sense.)

In the acute angle formed by the present Via dell'Amba Aradam and the Via dei Laterani was traced another large residence, originally two large dwellings in the 1st century but combined into one larger one in the 4th. This is one of several suggested claimants for the title of the House of the Laterani and/or the Domus Faustae.

Another large house around a trapezoidal courtyard was located under the basilica's apse in 1884 during restoration work. This has also been claimed as the Domus Faustae.

Bath-houses

It is known that there was a bath complex on the baptistery site in the late 3rd century, although how this evolved into the baptistery is disputed. There is an impressive standing ruin of another bath-house west of the baptistery. It is thought that both baths belonged to private villas, but which ones (those already described, or unknown others) cannot be decided without further excavations.

Barracks

Under the basilica itself the archaeologists found the remains of a wealthy 1st century house with rich decoration of Neronian date. In about the year AD 197 it was demolished and replaced by a very large barracks complex called the Castra Nova Equitum Singularium, which was for the mounted bodyguard or equites singulares of the emperor Septimius Severus. (The ancient Romans weren't complete geniuses -as well as not being able to invent the wheelbarrow, they did not have stirrups either. This meant that these troops were not very effective in warfare, but were mainly for show. The Roman army relied on infantry.)

The period of the civil war which eventually put the emperor Constantine on the throne involved the city of Rome being held by the emperor Maxentius, a confirmed pagan (as were most of the city's elite) and also the last Roman emperor actually to reside at Rome permanently.The equites singulares were part of Maxentius's army, and loyal to him. The Battle of the Milvian Bridge on 28 October 312 saw the triumph of Constantine and the rout of the equites. This seems to have been one factor in the choice of the site of the basilica, for by demolishing the barracks of the elite troops of his enemy and erecting a Christian basilica over the foundations, Constantine's victory was symbolically made even more complete.

Foundation

Constantine published the Edict of Milan in February 313, ending official disapproval of Christianity, and went on to make Christianity the official government cult of the Empire. He did not, however, suppress paganism and another motivation for choosing this rather out-of-the-way suburban site was its distance from the great pagan public institutions of Rome. By tradition the emperor granted Pope Miltiades the barracks and the so-called Domus Faustae for his headquarters as soon as he entered the city as victor in 312, and a church edifice was immediately consecrated here on 9 November 312. This is much too early, and is obviously dependent on the casual remark by Optatus already referred to.

It is not actually known where the pope had his headquarters in the city before then. Two centuries of archaeological investigations have led to not one single instance of a dedicated pre-Constantinian Christian place of worship being positively identified. This negative evidence is now thought to be significant. As well as private houses for small gatherings, it is suspected that early Roman Christians merely rented commercial meeting-halls for their larger gatherings -and so the pope might not have had a permanent and Church-owned cathedral before Constantine at all. (It may be noted here that the old idea that early Roman Christians lived and worshipped in the catacombs is complete rubbish.)

The barracks and the trapezoidal house next door were partially demolished for the new basilica, and the voids created by removing the roofs and the upper parts of the walls were packed with rubble to create a platform on which to erect the new basilica.

There is a serious problem in interpreting the functions of the several so-called Constantinian Christian basilicas. See Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura -Basilica Constantiniana. Basically, the revisionist hypothesis is that only the Lateran basilica was a church as nowadays understood -that is, a place where the Eucharist was celebrated. The others seem to have been funerary monuments without altars - this applies even to the old St Peter's.

The new basilica was consecrated on Sunday 9 November, almost certainly in the year 318. This makes it the oldest known church in Rome.

Form of first basilica

Substantial alterations throughout the centuries have made some aspects of the form of the first basilica debatable. The following is a fair scholarly consensus:

The edifice was 100 metres long (almost exactly), and 54.5 metres wide. There was a central nave with two side aisles on each side (the Italian nomenclature describes these as "five naves"), with each side aisle being half the width of the central nave. The end of the latter was occupied by a semi-circular apse ten metres deep. The inner side aisles were the same length as the central nave, but the outer side aisles were ten metres shorter and ended at a pair of large rectangular chambers which protruded beyond the external side walls on each side. It is not known what these chambers were for. They were not a transept, and seem to have been in the wrong place to be pastophoria or side-chambers for the storage of liturgical items and the preparation of the liturgical elements.

The outside was apparently unadorned, although lack of descriptions is not evidence of lack. The entrance arrangements are unknown. An atrium with colonnaded ambulatories is a possibility, although the one known to be here seems to have been built later (as at St Peter's). Otherwise there would have been a single-storey narthex or loggia, entering the church (it is thought) through three doorways -not five.

The central nave and side aisles were separated by colonnades supporting horizontal entablatures (that is, trabeated). On either side of the central nave were nineteen or twenty columns in red granite from Aswan in Egypt (the same stone as used in the obelisk outside), and the side aisles were separated by a colonnade on each side of twenty-one columns in green verde antico marble.

The roof was open, with trusses (in contrast to ancient Roman basilicas, which were vaulted in concrete).

As might be expected, the interior was lavishly decorated. If the 7th century entry in the Liber Pontificalis is to be trusted (a big "if"), the free-standing main altar had a fastigium (baldacchino ?) in precious metals. This featured a representation in silver of Christ accompanied by the twelve apostles on the side facing the nave, Christ with four angels holding swords in silver on the side facing the apse and a golden canopy from which hung a chandelier in gold. It is not clear whether these were silver statues "in the round", or high reliefs, but the Liber has the main statue of Christ weighing one hundred and forty Roman pounds in silver and being five feet high. Seven altars in silver flanked the main one, which possibly displayed relics and sacred vessels (they would not have been used for Mass at this period). The conch of the apse containing the cathedra had a mosaic featuring vine-scrolls in gold.

The interpretation of the description of this fastigium is very difficult, as it might have been like a baldacchino as now understood, or more like a propylaeum or triumphal gateway separating the sanctuary from the nave (the latter seems to be the more preferred interpretation). A further problem of analysis was provided by the archaeologists excavating under the floor of the nave, who found two lines of rectangular marble blocks with sockets in front of the sanctuary. These, called the solea, are posited to have continued down the central nave, and to have supported some sort of processional canopy. Such an item is not reconcilable with pontifical liturgies performed in later centuries, but then nobody knows how the basilica functioned liturgically when it was built anyway.

The interior as a whole had forty-six hanging lamps in silver, donated by the emperor. He also gave a patrimony in land to the new church as a working institution, in Greece and North Africa as well as nearer home in Calabria, Campania and in the city itself.

5th to 7th centuries

The church was first simply known as the Basilica Constantiniana, but it seems to have been dedicated to Christ Our Saviour from the beginning. However, the first mention of the dedication dates from the mid 7th century in the reign of Pope Martin I (649-55). At an early stage it was also nicknamed the Basilica Aurea, "The Golden Basilica", either because of its rich interior decoration or because its inside walls had been revetted with yellow marble (there is archaeological evidence that the floor was).

The original silver fastigium was looted by the Visigoths when they sacked the city in 410, and replaced by Emperor Valentinian III in the reign of Pope Sixtus III (432-40). The same pope might have built the present baptistery, but this is disputed (see section below). A much more systematic sack of Rome was undertaken by the Vandals in 455, and the basilica was apparently stripped of its precious metals. It was restored by Pope St Leo the Great, and one scholarly interpretation is that this pope rebuilt the apse with an ambulacrum or semi-circular outside walkway (this is disputed). His successor, Pope Hilary (461-468) founded three subsidiary oratories dedicated to St John the Baptist, St John the Evangelist and the Holy Cross which were to each side and the back of the baptistery (the last-named was a converted ancient building, and was demolished in 1588). These were the first of many subsidiary chapels and churches around the basilica in the Middle Ages.

The first reference to a papal palace here dates from the year 501. Although the sensible tradition is that the popes took up residence here from the time of Constantine, there is actually no proof of this.

There was another restoration by Pope St Gregory the Great in about 590. It is regularly claimed in publications that the dedication of the basilica then changed to St John the Baptist, and that a Benedictine monastery was attached to it. This was a malicious fabrication propagated by the Benedictine abbey of Montecassino from the 12th century in order to boost its prestige, and should be ignored. The basilica has never been administered by monks, only by secular priests succeeded by canons regular.

The Oratory of St Venantius was built next to the baptistery by Pope John IV (640-642). He was from Dalmatia (modern Croatia), which was being ruined by incursions of Slav barbarians at the time (these hominids made the Germanic barbarians look high-tech), and so built the oratory for saints' relics rescued from ruined churches.

Baptistery

The foundation of the present baptistery is controverted by scholars. Archaeologists working from 1925 to 1929 found evidence beneath it of a circular 4th (?) century building, inserted into a bath-house complex itself rebuilt at the start of the 3rd century. One interpretation is that this rotunda was a pre-existing baptistery taken over by Constantine for his basilica. A second one is that this rotunda was the baptistery that Constantine built, and that in either case it was demolished and replaced by the present octagonal edifice by Pope Sixtus III in the early 5th century. This is disputed, and alternatively it is claimed that the present octagonal structure is Constantinian and that Pope Sixtus only altered the interior arrangements.

Emperor Constantine had installed a porphyry font with seven silver deer pouring water out of their mouths, also an image of the Lamb of God in gold and images of Christ and St John the Baptist in silver. All the metal would have been looted by the barbarians in the 5th century.

It has been suggested (without evidence) that the dedication of St John the Baptist was originally that of the baptistery, and that it passed to the basilica by a sort of osmosis. The first unofficial documentary mention of the basilica itself having a subsidiary dedication to the two saints John is from the mid 7th century: Basilica costantiniana quae et Salvatoris ipsa quoque et S[an]c[t]i Iohannis dicitur. An official reference to such a dedication has to wait until the beginning of the 10th century.

Monasteries and vineyards

The conquests of Islam in the latter 7th century meant that many monastics of Eastern rite came to Rome as refugees. By this time the hills of Rome were already depopulated, because the aqueducts had failed and the only way to obtain a water supply was to dig a deep well. Hence the surviving citizens huddled next to the river, and in the valleys where there were springs and where shallow wells would yield water. The hills were left to the monks, who founded many monasteries on them.

It is thought that these spearheaded the clearance of the ruined city neighbourhoods on the hills, and turned them into vineyards -drinking well and river water was dangerous to the health, hence the ready market for wine. This meant an enormous amount of work, but the process is entirely undocumented. It used to be imagined that the ruins simply somehow eroded away and left open country, but a moment's thought will show how silly this idea is. The vineyards provided the setting for the basilica until the 19th century.

In 726, the Imperial government at Constantinople (the so-called "Byzantine Empire", although the Roman citizens and everyone else back then called it the Roman Empire) began a policy of iconoclasm or destruction of sacred images which was strenuously resisted by Greek monastics. This led to another influx of exiles into Rome, and hence more monasteries. By the end of the century, the basilica was the focus of a swarm of monasteries which mostly faded away after the 10th century. The surviving churches of Santi Marcellino e Pietro al Laterano and Sant'Andrea in Laterano descend from two of them.

8th century

Pope Zacharias (741-51), a Greek himself, is the first pope on record to initiate substantial building works in the patriarchium or papal palace, which were continued by Pope Hadrian I (772–779) and which eventually resulted in the enormous mediaeval palace. The latter pope also restored the roof of the basilica and the atrium, and it is argued that he actually built the latter instead of repairing a previously existing structure. Support for this opinion lies in the odd layout -the atrium only occupied the basilica's frontage for the central nave and the two right hand side aisles. It is thought that this was in order to respect a pre-existing structure on the site of the later Oratory of St Thomas.

Pope Leo III (795-816) built a famous dining hall or Triclinium Leoninum for the palace, which was embellished with mosaics in its apse. An 18th century copy of apse and mosaics is near the Scala Santa, but not on the original site which was nearer the basilica's façade and faced the other way. He also installed stained glass windows in the apse (it is known that the apse had windows, but the disposition of the original fenestration of the basilica is unknown).

9th century

The Liber Pontificalis entry for Pope Sergius II (844-7) mentions that he had a ceremonial staircase installed in the north entrance of the palace. It became known as the Scala Pilati, which literally means "staircase armed with javelins". An unprovable hypothesis is that this name originally referred to guards with javelins standing at the entrance to the palace, and that later the word pilati was taken to refer to Pontius Pilate -and so the legend of the Scala Santa was born. The same pope also had excavated the forerunner of the present confessio or devotional crypt in front of the high altar.

In 897 the basilica was the scene of the surreal "cadaver synod", when Pope Stephen VI (896–897) had the body of Pope Formosus (891-896) exhumed and put on a mock trial. The corpse was convicted, desecrated and ended up in the river. A 19th century painting of the proceedings is here.

During the synod the basilica was, ominously, severely damaged by an earthquake in the year 896. The entire roof of the central nave fell in. Nowadays it is not considered that Rome is at risk from a major earthquake, but in fact major ones have occasionally happened and this particular one probably caused the final ruination of the great ancient monuments of the Roman Forum and elsewhere in the city. (Another earthquake in 1349 is now considered to have collapsed one side of the Colosseum, leaving a very convenient heap of building stone for Renaissance architects.)

10th century

Pope Sergius III (904–911) had the basilica completely restored because of the earthquake damage. This has been described as a complete rebuilding on the old foundations, but this is disputed. Fabric of the outer walls was probably left standing, while the central nave side walls above the colonnades were rebuilt. This restoration involved new mosaics in the apse, and a tower campanile was also apparently erected. It is only now that the dedication of St John the Baptist appears in the official sources.

There is some debate about this campanile, with an alternative viewpoint being that the twin campanili now existing derive from a similar pair erected by Pope Sergius.

Pope John XII (955-964) built an oratory dedicated to St Thomas the Apostle, against the basilica's frontage next to the beginnings of the left hand side aisles. This was in the corner of the frontage and the atrium, and probably replaced an earlier building. This structure was to function as the basilica's sacrarium or vestry for centuries, until demolished in the 17th century. It was the original location of the famous Sedes stercoraria or "shitty chair", in which the pope sat during his ceremonial vesting. An extremely stupid legend alleged that it that it was used to examine the anus of a newly-elected pope to check that he was a virgin up there, but the real reason was that, when the pope sat in the seat, the chapel choir sang a verse from Psalm 113: Suscitans de terra inopem, de stercore erigens pauperem ("He raises the helpless from the ground, from the shit-heap he lifts up the poor"). A mitigated version of the legend suggests that the inspection was to ensure that the candidate had intact genitalia, so as to fulfil an ancient requirement for the sacramental priesthood derived from Jewish norms specified in the Old Testament.

The first mention of the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in the Campus Lateranensis (the present Piazza di San Giovanni Laterano) is from 965. The popes were collecting other ancient sculptures to display here, too. These included the Spinario, the Lex de imperio Vespasiani and the fragments of the Colossus of Constantine. (The Capitoline Wolf was thought to be one of these, but is actually early mediaeval.)

In the 10th and 11th centuries, several popes were buried in the portico next to the atrium. As well as Pope John XII, Popes John X, John XIV, Alexander II and Sylvester II were laid to rest here before the fashion established itself of burial at St Peter's.

Layout in the Middle Ages

At the turn of the millennium, the basilica was in open country surrounded by vineyards as the nearest urban areas were the Roman Forum (turned into a closely-packed neighbourhood) and the Suburra (a slum in ancient times, and to remain so until the 19th century). The road network had been mostly abandoned, and the main access to the complex was a driveway from the Via Labicana on the line of the lower end of the present Via Merulana. Another important route for pilgrims ran to the Tiber quays via the Clivus Scauri, San Gregorio Magno al Celio and the north side of the Circus Maximus. A road of sorts led down to the Via Appia near the Baths of Caracalla, and donkey tracks occupied the present Via dei Quattro Coronati and the present road to Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. The only way to Santa Maria Maggiore was via a lane to Sant'Eusebio all'Esquilino and then through the Arch of Gallienus.

To the north of the basilica was the papal palace or patriarchium, with the private living quarters of the pope around what is now the Scala Santa and the official departments around a courtyard on the site of the present palace. To the south of the basilica were the living quarters of the resident clergy, later called the monasterium. The basilica was initially administered by a college of secular priests, who were already expected to follow a common rule of life although their status as Canons Regular of the Lateran was to come later around the turn of the millennium.

The basilical complex proper was surrounded by subsidiary institutions, which as the Middle Ages progressed became focused on pilgrimages with many hospices being founded. As travelling to Rome became (relatively) safer in the 11th century, the number of pilgrims arriving here increased massively.

The section of the Forma Urbis Romae map by Lanciani 1901 which shows the layout of the complex in the later Middle Ages is here. Be aware that several details as shown are not now considered correct.

12th century

In 1115 in the reign of Pope Paschal II, the basilica's tower campanile (or the eastern one of the two, if there were two) was struck by lightning and fell on outer right hand side aisle. It is uncertain whether this particular tower was put up by Pope Sergius III in the 10th century, or was a later 11th century replacement. Proper repair to the damage was finished only in the reign of Pope Innocent II (1130-43), but the tower was not replaced until the extant twin campanili were erected in the 13th century.

In 1120, the aqueduct of the Aqua Claudia was repaired to bring water to the complex. This can be regarded as the beginning of the glory days of the palace.

In 1123, the First Council of the Lateran was called by Pope Callixtus II. This ranks as an ecumenical council of the Church, and almost a thousand bishops and religious superiors attended. They assembled in a large meeting-hall which stood on the west side of the palace courtyard north of the basilica, and was fifty metres long with five apses in each side wall and one in the south end where the pope presided as chair. This aula concilii was to host further ecumenical councils. The Second Council of the Lateran was in 1139, the Third Council of the Lateran in 1179 and the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215 (there was a Fifth Council much later, in 1512).

In the restoration by Pope Innocent II the far ends of the colonnades were cut back to give the church a proper transept, as it has now.

The additional subsidiary dedication to St John the Evangelist as well as St John the Baptist was made official by Pope Lucius II (1144–1145).

13th century

It used to be thought that the portico was spectacularly rebuilt by Nicola d'Angelo in the reign of Pope Alexander III (1159-81), but this work is nowadays dated to the beginning of the 13th century. It survived until 1732, and sculptural fragments are now in the cloisters. The portico had six columns supporting an entablature bearing an epigraph announcing the basilica to be the first in dignity of all churches (the predecessor of the present recut inscription), as well as a frieze with lion-head masks and mosaics showing The Donation of Constantine, The Baptism of Constantine, The Beheading of the Baptist, The Boiling in Oil of St John the Evangelist and Pope St Sylvester Defeats the Dragon. All of these are lost.

Pope Honorius III (1216-27) is on record as supervising restoration work in the basilica. It used to be thought that his work was superseded by later projects, but now it seems that he might have been responsible for the above.

The superb surviving monastery cloisters were erected between 1222 and 1232 by Vassalletto father and son, both called Pietro. By this time the priests in charge were living as canons, that is, under a common rule of life. However, they were supplemented by salaried clergy called penitentiaries (penitenzieri) whose main job was to hear the confessions of pilgrims. These two groups shared the convent premises, but were kept apart institutionally.

Also around this time the influential Annibaldi family managed to obtain permission to build a palace and fortified tower in the Campus Lateranensis, in between the baptistery and the aula.

A serious earthquake in 1277 damaged both basilica and palace, and Pope Nicholas III oversaw the repair work. He is most famous for rebuilding the main palace chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum in the process -see San Lorenzo in Palatio ad Sancta Sanctorum for the result.

Pope Nicholas IV (1288-92) ordered a remodelling of the sanctuary area of the basilica. The apse was completely rebuilt, and it might have been at this point that an ambulacrum was provided running round the outside of the apse, instead of in the time of Pope Leo I. A magnificent mosaic by Jacopo Torriti was provided for the apse conch, which was destroyed in 1876. Torriti's assistant in this was a Franciscan friar called Jacopo da Camerino. The high altar was executed by Cinto de Salvati, and completed in 1293 by Giovanni dell'Aventino and Giovanni di Cosma with his son Lucantonio. The canopy of the baldacchino was in silver, supported by four columns of red jasper. In front of the altar and stretching into the nave was the schola cantorum or Choir of the Canons, enclosed by marble screens. The nave end of this featured another altar dedicated to St Mary Magdalen, which was the one used for ordinary daily Masses. This was erected by Deodato da Cosma in 1297.

At the end of the 13th century, the basilica would have been an absolute treasure-house of mediaeval artworks. Tragically little of these have survived, mostly in the form of sad fragments displayed in the cloister.

A fresco of the medieval interior of the basilica can be seen in San Martino ai Monti, but unfortunately scholars have recently decided that it is not reliable. More useful are a series of sketches of the outside of the basilica and palace made by Maarten van Heemskerck in about 1535.

Loggia of Benedictions

The last intervention in the period of the basilica's glory was by Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303). He built the Loggia of Benedictions (Loggia dei Benedizioni) which was attached to the north end of the aula concilii, and was a spectacular raised balcony over the aula's entrance. Three porphyry columns supported an entablature, on which was the balcony proper which had a single large trefoil opening over a solid carved marble balustrade flanked by a pair of columns in verde antico. Over this in turn was a round-headed niche with a gable and flanked by a pair of crocketed Gothic pinnacles, which contained statues of SS Peter and Paul now in the basilica's museum. A drawing by Heemskerck can be found on a web-page here.

The most important aspect of this project was the fresco work by Giotto. A rather pathetic fragment of this, showing the pope, is now in the basilica.

The Loggia was built for the great Jubilee which the pope declared for the year 1300.

Avignon captivity

On 6 May 1308 the basilica was gutted by fire, which destroyed the nave roof and also damaged the palace. It burned for three days. The complex never recovered, because the French Pope Clement V (1305–1314) refused to move to Rome after his election and settled at the papally governed enclave of Avignon in the south of France. The Avignon Captivity was a complete disaster for the city of Rome, as government (such as there was) was left in the charge of the abbot of San Paolo fuori le Mura and a feral nobility ran amok. The citizens and pilgrims were terrorized, and the population fell below 20 000 for the first time since the city grew to greatness.

The destruction of the basilica was not total, as the baldacchino of the altar was reported as only damaged and Emperor Henry VII was crowned here in 1312. Pope Clement sent an enormous sum of money for rebuilding, but in 1343 a storm damaged the basilica followed by an earthquake in 1347. Finally, the church was destroyed by fire again in 1360. This fire was much more thorough, since the transept roof burned as well as the nave and the altar was destroyed under the fallen debris. For four years the ruins lay untouched, to be lamented over by Petrarch.

Pope Urban V (1362–1370) finally commissioned an architect from Siena called Giovanni di Stefano to rebuild in 1364. Because many of the original columns of the colonnades had been crushed by falling walls, he apparently replaced several of them with brick piers. The surviving baldacchino is by him, and is now the only visible evidence of the restoration. He also added spires to the two campanili, later replaced. The work was completed in 1370.

After the return of Pope Gregory XI to Rome in 1377, the Vatican palace was chosen as the papal residence and this proved to be the death-knell of the old Lateran Palace. However, he did arrange the rebuilding of the north end of the transept (the present "Loggia of Benedictions", not to be confused with the mediaeval one), and provided it with a pair of lion sculptures on columns to guard the entrance. The fabric of this rebuilding is the wall behind the Loggia.

Renaissance

Pope Gregory oversaw the completion of the restoration by di Stefano, and Pope Urban VI (1378-89) enshrined the heads of SS Peter and Paul in silver reliquaries in the baldacchino above the high altar, where they still are.

Pope Martin V (1417-1431) restored the nave roof again, and had the extant Cosmatesque floor laid. He also commissioned Gentile da Fabriano and Pisanello to fresco the interior, resulting in a superb display only known through drawings that Borromeo ordered to be made before he supervised the destruction of the frescoes. Pope Eugene IV (1431–1447) oversaw the completion of this restoration project. The colonnades of the central nave had become dangerous (the ancient granite columns were probably cracked and spalled by fire), and were now systematically replaced by brick piers with arcade arches instead of a horizontal entablature. The north end of the transept was given a proper façade, involving a large Gothic arched doorway with several orders of molding and a tympanum, over which was a small round window and then a cavetto cornice which curved outwards. This last feature was drawn by Heemskerck, but without a mosaic (the idea of the curve is that a mosaic would not seem fore-shortened to somebody standing in front of the door).

The Fifth Council of the Lateran was held here in 1512. This was the old palace's swan-song.

Pope Paul III (1534-49) rebuilt the dome of the baptistery. He also proposed the demolition of the palace to provide materials for the future repair of the basilica -it is obvious that the vast old complex was now derelict. The ancient sculptures in the Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano, including the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, were donated to the city and taken to the Campodoglio in 1558.

Pope Pius IV (1559-65) embellished the baptistery, and also commissioned the extant nave ceiling of the basilica in 1562. The design is attributed to Pirro Ligorio, the structural carpenters were Vico di Raffaele di Lazzaro and Matteo Bartolini da Castello, the fine-detail woodcarvers were Daniele da Volterra and François "Flaminio" Boulanger, the painter was Luzio Luzi and the gilder was Leonardi Cugni. The work dragged on to 1567, which is why the heraldry of Pope Pius V features.

The two campanili were remodelled in the style that they now have by Pope Pius IV.

Pope Gregory XIII (1572-85) cleared the present Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano for the Jubilee year of 1575, by demolishing the Annibaldi palace. The present baptistery entrance was made then, allegedly, which would have entailed demolishing the atrium of the Chapel of the Holy Cross (see below).

Sixtus V

Pope Sixtus V (1585-90) oversaw enormous changes to the complex. Firstly, he ordered the demolition of the old palace in 1586 and its replacement by the present smaller edifice by Domenico Fontana. This was finished in 1589, and was intended as a summer palace for the popes. However, they preferred the Quirinal Palace because it was at a higher elevation -cooler and with fewer malarial mosquitoes. The new palace never found a proper use until recently.

The pope's attention to the city's street system led to the provision of a new main road from the basilica to Santa Maria Maggiore, the present Via Merulana.

The pope specified that the 13th century private palace chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum was to be kept, and Fontana enclosed this in a new building also containing the Scala Santa which he had transferred from its original position in the north entrance porch of the old palace. This stand-alone edifice is now usually simply known as the Scala Santa.

Fontana also laid out the present Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano. He brought in and erected the obelisk, and provided an entrance loggia for the north end of the basilica's transept. The new civic space was the terminus of the equally new Via di San Giovanni in Laterano, laid out from the Colosseum in order to give a proper direct route from the city for papal processions. This was completed in 1588, and replaced the closely parallel but unsuitable Via dei Quattro Coronati which was no better than a bridle path.

Very unfortunately, Fontana also demolished the ancient Oratory of the Holy Cross in 1588 -this was an enormous loss.

Oratory of the Holy Cross

The Oratorio della Santa Croce had been founded by Pope Hilary in the 5th century. It was originally a mausoleum (?) dating to around the year 200, with a plan of a Greek cross inserted into a chamfered square. There was a central octagonal dome, with a high drum topped by a shallow tiled cupola. The location was just to the north-east of the baptistery, with a public entrance in the north-west cross arm and another entrance in the north-east arm which led into a rectangular atrium colonnaded on its west and south sides. The latter side contained an entrance into the baptistery, which is now the main public entrance to that edifice.

Much of the ancient pagan decorative elements had survived, including polychrome marble inlay work on the walls and a mosaic showing four genii in the interior of the dome. These were left alone when the building was converted, as they could be regarded as angels, but the central tondo was given a mosaic of the Cross in the 5th century. A fragment of the True Cross was venerated here in mediaeval times.

The little atrium was noted as being especially beautiful, with columns of porphyry and coloured marbles, ancient sarcophagi converted into fountains, marble screens and mosaics.

Baroque remodelling

For the Jubilee of 1600, Pope Clement VIII gave Giacomo della Porta the commission to re-decorate the transept and erect the spectacular Blessed Sacrament Altar. The Cavalier d'Arpino oversaw the paintwork.

In 1646, the patched-up basilica was in danger of collapsing. Pope Innocent X gave the task of restoring the fabric to Francesco Borromini, in preparation for the Holy Year of 1650. However the work went on for so long that the date was missed, and the project was only completed in 1660. By that time the pope was dead, and had been succeeded by Alexander VII. The latter brought the ancient bronze doors from Sant'Adriano, the ancient Curia Iulia, and installed them as the central entrance doors. The ancient Oratory of St Thomas next to the portico was demolished.

It was as a result of Borromini's restoration that the church was given its present Baroque appearance, and it no longer looks like ancient basilica. Only the gilded ceiling and the Cosmatesque floor were kept, although Borromini had intended to provide a vault for the central nave. The ceiling has since been restored and altered considerably, whereas Borromini had the floor carefully repaired. The dimensions of the edifice were not changed.

The major structural change was that the square piers of the central arcades were removed and replaced with massive rectangular piers each with an apsidal niche on its inner face. There are five of these piers on each side, with a sixth attached to the counterfaçade. Controversially, Borromini also removed the ancient verde antico aisle columns, and put them into store. Then he replaced them with ten square piers on either side, with an eleventh on the steps leading up to the transept. The inner side aisles he arch-vaulted, with saucers alternating with short barrel vaults behind the central piers. The outer side aisles he gave flat vaults, with the bays separated by trabeations.

Many of the ancient verde antico columns re-used to embellish Baroque aedicules inserted into the niches in the central piers. These remained empty until 1702, when they were used to display colossal statues of the twelve apostles. The project was ordered by Pope Clement XI, and supervised by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj who was Archpriest (priest-in-charge) of the basilica. This work was finished in 1718, when the pope had the oval tondi in the upper nave side walls frescoed with prophets.

New portico

Meanwhile, the Lateran Palace remained underused. Pope Innocent XII (1691-1700) actually established an orphanage here, with the orphans put to work in weaving silk.

The next major intervention was for the Jubilee of 1750. Pope Clement XII began the project in good time by holding a competition in 1732 for the design of a new façade and portico to replace the mediaeval one. The surprise winner was Alessandro Galilei, a Florentine hardly well-known in Rome. However, the choice was prescient because Galilei was an anti-Baroque forerunner of the neo-Classical architectural movement, and had already been involved in the neo-Palladian architectural movement in England and Ireland. It is claimed that Christopher Wren's work in London was a major influence on him. The new portico was completed in 1735. Part of the project was the provision of a funerary chapel for the pope's family, which is the Corsini Chapel just behind the façade on the left.

In 1775 the nave ceiling was restored on the orders of Pope Pius VI, who had his own heraldry incorporated in it.

19th century

The interior of the Lateran Palace was restored in 1838, after it had become very messy. The edifice had been seriously abused under the batrachian occupation government of the French under Napoleon from 1808 to 1814.

In 1851, Pope Pius IX employed Filippo Martinucci to restore the high altar, and to provide the present confessio or devotional crypt. After the annexation of Rome by Italy in 1870, this pope and his two successors sulked in the Vatican (the self-proclaimed title "Prisoner of the Vatican" was mendacious) and did not visit the basilica for over half a century.

The last major intervention in the fabric was in 1878, when Pope Leo XIII commissioned the Vespignanis, father and son, to extend the sanctuary by one bay and so to provide a proper choir for the canons. This was done by demolishing the mediaeval apse, and with it the famous apse mosaic by Torriti -a surprising act of vandalism at so late a date. The work was completed in 1884. The new apse was provided with a copy of the lost mosaic, which is often described as the old one carefully transferred -this is not the case. Art critics of the time who saw both old and new mosaics were not kind about the latter.

After the demolition of the old apse, possibly in 1880, it was realized that substantial remains of ancient buildings existed beneath the basilica. A limited excavations was carried out, which revealed a large house around a trapezoidal courtyard which was predictably hailed as the Domus Faustae.

The present church measures 130 by 54 metres as a result of the extension of the sanctuary.

Museums in the palace

Some use was found for the palace in the 19th century, as an overflow for the Vatican Museums called the Museo Lateranense although it comprised three separate museum institutions.

Pope Gregory XVI (1831–1846) set up the Museo Profano Lateranense here in 1844, the collection comprising pagan Roman statues, relief sculptures and mosaics. In 1854, under Pius IX, this was joined by the Museo Pio Cristiano, comprising three main collections assembled by the pioneer archaeologists Giuseppe Marchi (a Jesuit) and Giovanni Battista de Rossi. Marchi collected early Christian sculptural items, while de Rossi concentrated on epigraphs; a third department of the museum consisted of copies of some of the more important catacomb frescoes then known. Father Marchi was appointed as director of the new museum.

In 1910, under Pope St Pius X, the Lapidario Ebraico was established here also which is a unique collection of one hundred and thirty seven Roman Jewish epitaphs from ancient cemeteries in Rome (mostly from catacombs on the Via Portuense).

Then the Museo Missionario Etnografico was opened on the orders of Pope Pius XI, based on a collection of historical documents relating to 19th century missionary activity and ethnographic items from the peoples among whom these missions took place. The core of the collection was first publicly exhibited in Rome at the Missionary Exposition in 1925.

The four separate museum institutions were transferred from the Lateran Palace to the Vatican Museums on the orders of Pope St John XXIII, and the collections put back on public display there in 1970. They are still catalogued as ex Lateranense to indicate their former location. Pope St John then finally gave the Palace a proper function, by establishing the offices of the Vicariate of the Diocese of Rome here.

A new museum illustrating the history of the Papal States, the Museo Storico Vaticano, was opened in the palace in 1991.

Extra-territorial

In 1929, the Lateran Treaty finally regularized the relationships between the Holy See and Italy, and the basilical complex became an extra-territorial entity. This means that the territory remains with Italy, but all administration is vested entirely in Vatican City. The area concerned includes the basilical complex with the palace and monastery, also the Scala Santa with its attached monastery in a detached portion. Pope Pius XI gave a home in the complex to the University of the Pontifical Roman Seminary, which had been founded by Pope Clement XIV in 1773 when he suppressed the Jesuits (previously in charge of training the diocesan clergy). The institution still has its headquarters here, although now it is called the Pontifical Lateran University.

Further excavations under the church were carried out 1934–1938, the opportunity being taken with a restoration of the Cosmatesque floor. These revealed the remains of the barracks of the Equites singulari, which are substantial because of the way that the rooms of the edifice had been packed with rubble to form a platform on which to build the basilica. It was merely a case of removing the rubble, taking care not to undermine the church's foundations.

On 23 July 1993, a Mafia car bomb damaged the façades of the palace and basilica in Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano. The 1992-3 Mafia bombing campaign was the result of certain seriously lunatic Sicilian "businessmen" thinking that they could terrorize both the Church and the Italian government. They were wrong. Here, the damage was quickly repaired by 1996.

A new bronze Holy Door was installed for the Jubilee of 2000, designed by Floriano Bodini.

Exterior

Layout of locality

The Lateran is a well-defined locality in an area of 19th century suburban development of little more interest than the vineyards that it replaced. The gigantic statues of Christ and the apostles over the façade of the basilica feature in many views of the city, but the basilica itself hides itself surprisingly well close-up.

To its north-west is the Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano with its obelisk, and this has been historically the main focus of the church's civic presence. To the east of the piazza is the bulk of the Lateran Palace, occupying the north side of the nave and hiding any view of it. South is the prominent façade of the north end of the transept, the Loggia of Benedictions (a poor substitute for the grand mediaeval one). To the south-west is the Baptistery, and beyond that are the buildings of the university. To the west are the buildings of the men's department of the Ospedale di San Giovanni by Giacomo Mola 1634, and what looks like a church in the north-west corner is the end of the ward wing of the women's department by Giovanni Antonio de' Rossi 1666.

If you walk eastwards along the main road, you will see the façade of the Scala Santa straight ahead on the other side of the road from the palace. Then, round the corner of the palace on the right, is the main façade of the basilica overlooking the large trapezoidal grassed area of the Piazza di Porta San Giovanni.

Many people enter the church from the Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano - note that this entrance is, in effect, the back door, and you will get a very different and better impression of the church if you enter from the front on your first visit.

Layout and fabric of basilica

The basilica's fabric is in brick. There is uncertainty and argument as how much of the original 4th century brickwork remains in the fabric, with some thinking that there is very little.

The central nave, transept and sanctuary are under one pitched and tiled roof in the form of a Latin cross. The side aisles have lower roofs, which are now flat, and the apse is roofed in lead. The façade block by Galalei is a separate structure architecturally, and has its own pitched and tiled roof.

There are five large external chapels off the nave side aisles, added by the simple expedient of knocking holes through the outer side walls of the church in order to provide access. The two to the north are entirely hidden by the palace; the eastern one is the Cappella Torlonia and has a little dome in lead, while the western one is the Cappella Massimo and has a simple pitched and tiled roof. The three to the south are interesting studies in architectural contrasts. The one to the east is on a Greek cross plan with side apses, and is the Cappella Corsini. It has a hemispherical dome in lead on a circular brick drum with large rectangular windows, which you can see if you peer round the left hand corner of the entrance façade. The middle chapel is the Cappella Antonelli, which is rectangular externally and has an elliptical dome which is tiled in a smooth curve (no sectors). The western chapel has an oval (egg-shaped) dome, tiled in ten sectors.

To the south of the transept is the mediaeval cloister, and to the west of the south side of the transept is the large sacristy wing which extends well beyond the apse. The baptistery with its four subsidiary chapels is a stand-alone edifice on a different axis, at an angle to the major axis of the church to the north-west of the apse.

Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano

The piazza is now dominated by a very wide, busy and horrifying main road which basically ruins it as a civic space. However, it is the surviving area of the ancient Campus Lateranensis which was the mustering-ground of both the basilica and the palace throughout mediaeval times. (The main entrance of the basilica faced away from the city and over a slope, so the mustering-ground was not established there.) Here stood the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius before it was moved to the Campodoglio in 1538.

The present layout (minus the road, but with the obelisk) was the work of Domenico Fontana in 1588. The piazza was designed to be the terminus of the new papal processional road of the Via di San Giovanni in Laterano, opened in the same year for Pope Sixtus V.

This street was declared to be the city's Via Gay by the municipality in 2007 and, as such, has its own web-page here which is winsomely pastel compared to similar offerings from other European cities.

The piazza's furnishings were renewed and modified by Valadier in the 1830's.

Obelisk

In Egypt

The pink granite obelisk was originally quarried in the Northern Quarry at Aswan, Egypt on the orders of Pharaoh Tuthmosis III (1479 to 1425 BC) of the Eighteenth Dynasty. He apparently intended it to be one of a pair (as all other known obelisks are), and it is thought that the twin would have been the Unfinished Obelisk, still in the quarry after it was abandoned when a flaw developed in the stone. There is a strong suspicion that the original commissioner was Hatshepsut, the "queen pharaoh" who temporarily supplanted Tuthmosis when he was a boy.

The obelisk is a monolith or single piece of stone, 32 metres high and weighing an estimated 455 tons. It is the largest obelisk known. About one to four metres of its seriously damaged base was sawn off before it was re-erected here. The Ancient Egyptians had no iron tools back then, so this work was quarried using diorite stone mauls to bash the rock and was finished using copper and bronze tools. This would have taken man-years of work, and the details of how they managed this are still unknown. For example, how did they carve the hieroglyphs so crisply?

A translation of the hieroglyphic inscriptions, too long to be given, is online here (search for "Obelisk now at the Lateran" on the web-page). As well as the usual formulaic incantations and boasts, it gives the interesting information that work was abandoned for 35 years after the death of the pharaoh. Then his son, Tuthmosis IV, had the obelisk erected at the eastern end of the temple of Amun Re in Karnak, Egypt, around 1390 BC.

The location of the obelisk was, it is thought, in the so-called "Temple of the Hearing Ear" which was a subsidiary temple just to the east of the enormous main one. It was rebuilt by Pharaoh Ramesses II, who added an inscription to the base of the obelisk. The temple's function was as a centre for receiving oracular pleas from ordinary people to the god Amun Re, hence the ancient name. On the plan here it is shown as the "Temple of Ramesses II".

Whereas St Peter certainly saw the obelisk now at Piazza San Pietro when he was being martyred in the adjacent ancient circus, Moses may very well have seen this one if he ever travelled to the ancient Egyptian capital of Thebes (in his day, the pharaohs had their capital in the Delta region).

In ancient Rome

The emperor Constantine ordered the obelisk to be taken to his new capital of Constantinople, but he died before it left Egypt. So it was brought to Rome by Constantius II, son of Constantine, and erected on the spina (central reservation) of the Circus Maximus. There it stood until it was toppled by an earthquake on an unknown date.

Pope Sixtus V was told of its documented existence, and it was found in 1587 seven metres below the surface of the vegetable gardens that the Circus had become, broken in three pieces. The depth indicates that the obelisk fell soon after the Circus was abandoned, and was then buried by those clearing the ruins on the adjacent hills for conversion to vineyards (such a burial could not have come about by simple natural erosion). The pope had the obelisk restored, and erected on its present location on 3 August 1588. The work was overseen by Fontana, who signed the plinth in satisfaction.

Present appearance

The obelisk stands on a tall limestone plinth. The side of this which faces the basilica bears an inscription which mentions the baptism of Constantine in the baptistery here, a legend that it historically inaccurate (he was actually baptized on his deathbed at Nicomedia in what is now Turkey). The other sides bear epigraphs describing the finding and re-erection.

When it was new back in Egypt, the pyramidion (point) of the obelisk would have been plated with electrum which, as a rare naturally occurring alloy of silver and gold, the Egyptians prized more than gold. Pope Sixtus had a bronze cross put on top instead, set on stylized mountains, a star and four pear-holding lions which occur in his coat-of-arms (the mountains and star originated with the Chigi family, although he was a Peretti -hence the pears).

The side of the plinth facing the main road has a fountain, featuring an eagle and two dragons from the heraldry of Pope Paul V (1605-21) who was a Borghese. However, the sides of the gigantic curlicues show the lion-and-pears motif of Pope Sixtus V which indicate that Pope Paul usurped the work (it was quite common at the time for successive popes to have widdling-contests by leaving their heraldry on architecture for which they had commissioned minor repairs. This can cause problems for historians).

Loggia of Benedictions

Loggia façade

The present Loggia of Benedictions occupies the entrance façade at the north end of the transept of the basilica, and replaced the mediaeval one. It is is by Domenico Fontana, who designed it in 1586. The edifice has two structurally identical storeys, each with five large arched portals with simply molded archivolts springing from Doric imposts. The arches are separated by pilasters supporting an entablature, and a pair of pilasters occupies each end.

The first storey is the entrance loggia, approached by a short flight of steps. The pilasters of this storey are Doric, and the frieze of the entablature has metopes with Eucharistic symbols. The cornice is dentillated. The spandrels of the arches have stars, stylized mountains and lions holding pear-boughs, all from the heraldry of Pope Sixtus. The railings were added by Pope Clement XII, and incorporate his heraldry.

The second storey is Corinthian, and has a low pin balustrade in the arches. The central arch's balustrade is slightly higher, and has two panels bearing the coat-of-arms of Pope Sixtus The entablature has an inscription Sixtus p[a]p[a] V ad benedictiones extruxit MDLXXXVI ("Pope Sixtus V built it for blessings, 1536"). The cornice is also dentillated, but also has little lions' masks. Above, there is another pin balustrade with two more coats-of-arms. The arch spandrels in this storey have Sistine heraldic elements too, except that the lions are replaced by simple pear boughs (a visual pun or rebus on the name Peretti).

Transept frontage and campanili

Above the loggia you can see the façade of the end of the transept. It is flanked by two low Romanesque bell-towers, given their present form by Pope Pius IV (1559-65) whose heraldry is on display in two gigantic panels (the shield with balls is of the Medici family). The wall surfaces are made to look like ashlar blocks with wide joints, except for a large rectangular panel in the centre below the horizontal roofline which is panelled with re-used ancient marble revetting slabs mostly in bluish-grey. The wall in which this is set is actually a false screen, concealing the gable end of the transept behind.

Below this marble panelling is a dentillated arc, enclosing a tondo which contains a little round window and some exposed brickwork. The bricks on view are re-used ancient ones. This is the only place where you can see the actual mediaeval brick fabric of the basilica from the street.

The twin campanili are rather squat, and have pyramidal spires with ball finials. Each has three storeys separated by dentillated cornices, the upper two storeys having soundholes in the form of an arcade of three arches separated by little columns.

19th century additions

The block to the right of the Loggia was added at the end of the 19th century as part of the re-modelling of the basilica's sanctuary. The Vespignanis, father and son, who were responsible, made a commendable effort in matching the structure both to the Loggia next door and to the palace façade. There is a three-arched portico on the ground floor with the arches separated by paired Doric pilasters, and a second storey with paired Corinthian pilasters. The separating entablature has triglyphs on its frieze, in proper Doric style. The three windows in the top storey have a central segmental pediment flanked by two triangular ones, in imitation of the palace.

The strange kiosk to the right is part of the same 19th century project, and has a large open Doric arch on each of its three sides, matching the loggia. What was it designed for?

Interior

The vaults and lunettes of the interiors of both the entrance portico and the Loggia of Benedictions have frescoes that were executed in 1588 by a group of artists led by Giovanni Guerra and Cesare Nebbia. In the portico vault are represented the heavenly host: Our Lady and the Apostles with prophets, martyrs, holy popes, virgins and other saints together with angels. The vault of the loggia has scenes from the martyrdom of St Peter and the conversion of Constantine, as well as Old Testament scenes and Doctors of the Church accompanied by angels and allegorical figures. The far wall has a large depiction of Pope Sixtus accompanied by cardinals in its centre.

The bronze statue to the left in the entrance portico is of Henry IV of France, who was reckoned as a benefactor of the basilica. It is by Nicolas Cordier 1608. The king had confirmed a donation to the Chapter of the ancient but rotten abbey of Clairac, the monks of which had apostatized to become Protestants in 1565. The Chapter of the Lateran obtained the property in 1604, but then oversaw a shocking and disgusting series of scandals involving the resident abbey clergy and those of the diocese of Agen. For example, one canon regular sent to be the administrator by the Chapter built a mansion in the city for his sodomisée mistress out of abbey funds (following the neat delusion that priestly celibacy is only breached by vaginal sex). Despite, the Chapter voted to make the reigning King of France an honorary canon in gratitude, and this conceit is still offered to the President of the Republic of France. The crawling epigraph on the pedestal is here.

To the right in the portico is a marble tablet bearing a copy of the bull of 1372 by Pope Gregory XI which proclaimed the basilica as being the first in dignity of all churches.

BASILICA of St John Lateran - Oct 2008 (2)

The actual balcony for benedictions is in the central arch above the main entrance. From it, by tradition a newly elected Pope would give his blessing on the day that he first took possession of the cathedral. However the main entrance façade of the basilica also has a loggia, and the area available there for a large crowd made this the more convenient location in modern times.

Lateran palace

The vast warren of the mediaeval Lateran Palace was finally demolished by Pope Sixtus V (1585–1590) after being derelict for decades. This was replaced by the neatly designed present edifice by Fontana, which is now occupied mostly by the Vicariate offices as well as the Museo Storico Vaticano. The three very similarly designed wings are arranged around an almost square courtyard to the north of the basilica -almost square but not quite, because if you count the rows of windows in each upper storey you will find fifteen in the west wing, thirteen in the north one and eleven in the east one.

There are three storeys, rendered in orange ochre with architectural details in limestone. The first storey has windows with floating cornices, while the other two storeys have alternate triangular and segmentally pedimented windows. Note how the architect has varied the design by placing a segment over a triangle, and vice versa. The roofline has a dentillated cornice with modillions over a frieze with more lions and pears, and from the piazza to the east you can see a single-storey belvedere tower. This is in the form of a rectangular Doric kiosk, with four columns on the long sides, two on the short and with corner piers, and is a fine edifice in its own right.

The main entrance is on the north side, where there is an impressive doorway with a flight of steps, having a pair of grey granite Doric columns supporting a pin-balustraded balcony on posts. Above the doorcase is a lions's mask with swags containing pears, and the work is embellished with other details from the heraldry of Pope Sixtus V. A little tablet inserted into the pediment of the window above the entrance proclaims his responsibility, and above is his coat-of-arms with tassels and fluttering ribbons.

The west entrance is the vehicular access to the paved courtyard, which is now a (very highly treasured) car parking facility for Vicariate employees. The gateway has the same balcony, window pediment and coat-of-arms as the other entrances, but here the portal is a rusticated arch with rusticated Doric semi-columns. The eastern entrance is similar.

Scala Santa and Sancta Sanctorum

Across the main road to the south-east of the palace is a building housing the Scala Santa, the Holy Staircase, and the chapel known as the Sancta Sanctorum. The latter was originally the main private chapel of the mediaeval palace, used by the popes from the time of Constantine (perhaps) until the move to Avignon in 1313.

For a fuller treatment of this edifice, see San Lorenzo in Palatio ad Sancta Sanctorum.

The stairs are said to have been brought here from the praetorium of Pilate in Jerusalem, where Christ climbed them before his Passion. The tradition is uncertain, but there is nothing that disproves it. They were said to have been brought to Rome by St Helena, Constantine's mother. It has 28 marble steps, now cased in wood. In several places, there are glass panes in the wood, through which one can see stains in the marble. These are said to be drops of Christ's blood, spilled when He walked the stairs. Many pilgrims come here to climb them, always on their knees, while contemplating on the Passion of Christ. It is said that the only person who gave up halfway up stairs is Martin Luther, who came here when he was still an Augustinian monk - but this might just be another joke about Luther. The 78 year old Blessed Pope Pius IX, in the other hand, managed to climb them on his knees on the eve of King Victor Emmanuel's invasion and annexation of Rome.

At the top of the stairs are a church and three chapels served by a Passionist community, which has a convent attached.

The oldest chapel is a 13th century rebuilding of an older structure, and is known as the Sancta Sanctorum, or Holy of Holies. This name refers to the inner room in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, which only the high priest could enter. It was a private chapel for the Pope. Above the entrance to the apse is the inscription NON EST IN TOTO SANCTIOR ORBE LOCUS ("there is no holier place in all the world"). It was decorated by the Cosmati in the 12th century, and was actually signed. An inscription with beautiful mediaeval lettering says MAGISTER COSMATUS FECIT HOC OPUS, meaning "Master Cosmatus made this work". The floor is a prime example of Cosmatesque work. The ceiling has a fresco showing the four beasts who sing a perpetual liturgy to God according to Scripture - a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle - and which came to be used as symbols for the Evangelists. On the walls are scenes of martyrdoms, including St Stephen the Deacon, Protomartyr of the Church, and SS Peter and Paul. The latter are shown explicitly as suffering in Rome, as it was their martyrdoms that first turned the city into a holy place. It was formerly used as the relic treasury of the papal palace, and allegedly held such relics as a bit of bread from the Last Supper, St John the Baptist's coat, St Matthew's shoulder, St Bartholomew's chin, and the heads of SS Peter, Paul, Agnes and Euphemia. There are still many relics and holy objects here, including ancient reliquaries with stones and earth from the Holy Land, brought back by pilgrims. Many of the reliquaries have Greek inscriptions, and are from the time before the Churches of the East and West were separated. You can look through a grille to see the Acheiropoeta, meaning 'not made with hands', an ancient icon of Christ said to have been miraculously painted by angels.

To the right of the chapel in this storey is the church of San Lorenzo, and behind the chapel is a devotional area also open to the public (the Sancta Sanctorum is only open to guided tours). It has a 16th century crucifix.

Triclinium Leoninum

Round the right hand corner of the façade of the Scala Santa is what purports to be the apse mosaic of a 9th century papal dining hall, Triclinium Leoninum, now displayed in an 18th century brick aedicule. It depicts Christ with the Apostles in the centre, Christ with Constantine and Pope Sylvester I on the left, and St Peter, Pope Leo III and Charlemagne on the right. Pope Leo III has a square nimbus, showing that he was alive when it was made.

The original mosaic has been dated to just before year 800, when Charlemagne was crowned as emperor in Rome, but the present work is an 18th century copy.

For further details and elucidations on this structure, see here.

Piazza di Porta San Giovanni

In front of the main entrance façade of the church is a large grassed area, often nowadays used as an assembly point for political demonstrations ( the city of Rome lacks convenient open spaces for the purpose). This is the Piazza di Porta San Giovanni. Beyond is a busy road junction, where traffic leaves and enters the walled city by the 16th century Porta San Giovanni, which replaced the ancient Porta Asinaria. The latter is the gate by which Totila the Goth entered Rome in 547 during the Gothic Wars.

If you look towards Santa Croce in Gerusalemme from the basilica's entrance, you can see a large bronze sculptural group of St Francis with five of his disciples, which is by Giuseppe Tonnini. The sculpture was inaugurated in 1927 on the seven hundredth anniversary of the death of the saint, and is here to commemorate an event from his life. While he was in Rome to get the Holy Father's approval for his Order, Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) saw in a dream that a man was supporting the basilica, which was on the verge of collapse. The next day, he met St Francis at the Lateran and recognized in him the saint sent by God to restore the church - not St John Lateran in particular, but the Church in general. The interview allegedly took place in the gardens formerly on this site.

The sculpture has its own web-page here.

The view eastwards from the basilica's entrance before 1870 was famously beautiful and inspiring. A British pilgrim called Mrs Hemans wrote, just before that year: "Few Roman churches are set within so impressive a picture as Santa Croce, approached on every side through those solitudes of vineyards and gardens, quiet roads and long avenues of trees, that occupy such an immense expanse within the walls of Rome. The scene from the Lateran, looking towards this basilica across the level grass, between lines of trees, with the distance of Campagna and the mountains, the castellated walls, the arcades of the Claudian aqueduct, amid gardens and groves, is more than beautiful".

After 1870, what happened to the area was horrid. Chinnery wrote in 1903: "The view from the porch, embracing the ancient walls of Aurelian, the Campagna with its long lines of aqueducts [still then an overgrazed and treeless sheep-walk], the Alban and Sabine hills dotted with white villages, is very beautiful". He added: "The hideous blocks of modern houses on the left are an eyesore, and spoil the view". The contemporary viewer may well add: "What view?". Sic transit gloria praeteritorum, cum tranquillior mundus erat.

A few foreign visitors made the trip to the Alban hills to see the view in the other direction, with the white façade of the basilica spotlit in the vast Campagna at sunrise, in front of the domes of the city on the infinitely distant horizon. Impossible now.

Façade

The main façade, in travertine limestone, is the work of Alessandro Galilei. This fairly young Florentine architect (born in 1691) beat many more famous names in a competition to win the commission. The first stone was laid by Pope Clement XII in 1732, and the completed structure was blessed on 8 December, 1735. Tragically, the architect died in the following year. His design has been described as early Neo-Classical, but is perhaps better described as Palladian Survival with Baroque elements (notably the crowning balustrade with statuary).

The façade faces the east, as the basilica was built before the tradition of placing the altar in the east had taken hold in Rome (actually, it never did overall as anybody visiting several Roman churches will notice).

The edifice is a separate architectural element, added onto the east frontage of the basilica. It has two storeys, with an entrance narthex occupying the lower one and a loggia occupying the upper one, but the design unifies these by incorporating a monumental, slightly projecting propylaeum with flanking gigantic pilasters. The propylaeum has two pairs of monumental Composite engaged columns on high shared plinths, which support an entablature and triangular pediment with modillions (little brackets) in the form of straps. In the tympanum of the pediment is a mosaic fragment by Jacopo Torriti, about 1291, which is the only survival of the famous mosaic decoration of the mediaeval portico that used to stand here. It shows the head of Christ, and is in a wreath tondo being held by a pair of angels sculpted by Paolo Ciampi.

The main body of the edifice has ten monumental Composite pilasters, on plinths which match those of the propylaeum. Two pairs occupy the outer corners, another two pairs are partly hidden by the columns of the propylaeum and two singletons are in between. These define five rectangular portals into the narthex, and five arched openings into the loggia.

The plinths have Baroque relief details. The two of the propylaeum have oval epigraph tablets in olive-wreaths with palm-fronds and ribbons, the two singletons have the coat-of-arms of Pope Clement XII and the two of the outer pilaster pairs bear the emblem of an umbraculum (liturgical umbrella) with the Keys of St Peter and swags. The epigraphs are two of the same: Sacros[ancta] Lateran[ensis] eccles[ia], omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput ("The holy Lateran church, mother and head of all churches of the city and the world").

The portals are trabeated, that is, each has two pairs of Composite pilasters supporting a horizontal entablature which bears a pin balustrade for the arched loggia portal above. The central entrance portal is almost as twice as wide as the side ones. The iron railings closing off the five entrance portals are original, and the central set bears the name of Pope Clement XII.

The friezes of the trabeation entablatures bear an epigraph which is a copy of a mediaeval one that used to be on the old portico. It reads:

Dogmate papali datur ac simul imperiali quod sim cunctarum mater caput ecclesiarum. Hinc salvatoris celestia regna datoris nomine sanxerunt cum cuncta peracta fuerunt. Quesumus ex toto conversi supplice voto nostra quod hec aedes tibi Christe sit inclita sedes.

("By a papal decree, together with an Imperial one, it is given that I am the head and mother of all churches. When everything was finished, they made this [place] sacred by the name of the Saviour who gives the heavenly kingdom. We, [your] servants by vow, beseech you, Christ, by our supplications that this temple may be for you a glorious seat".)

The loggia portal arches have molded archivolts springing from two pairs of Composite imposts, which match those of the trabeations below. The intradoses of the arches are embellished with square coffers containing rosettes.

The central portal and the arch above it are embellished to provide a balcony for papal blessings, subsidiary to the traditional Loggia of Benedictions at the other end of the basilica but more convenient for a large crowd. The entrance has two pairs of free-standing grey-veined white marble columns supporting a cornice on posts, the cornice in turn supporting the actual balcony. The central second-storey void above the balcony has a central arched section flanked by a pair of trabeations (horizontal bits); this design feature is called a serliana. The archivolt of this is supported by two pairs of grey granite columns, and the spandrels have a pair of putti in relief.

The gigantic pilasters mentioned support extensions to each side of the entablature of the propylaeum. The three entablature sections together bear a dedicatory epigraph on its frieze: Clemens XII Pont[ifex] Max[imus] anno [sui regni] V, Christo Salvatori in hon[ore] S[anctorum] Ioan[nis] Bapt[istae] et Evang[elistae]. Above there is an attic with a plinth over each of the ten pilasters, those over the central two pairs being slightly higher than the others and with pin balustrades linking them. In the centre there is a massive eleventh plinth with concave sides, bearing the Chi-rho symbol in a wreath as an allusion to the conversion of the emperor Constantine.

The plinths are occupied by colossal seven-metre high statues of Christ, SS John the Baptist and John the Evangelist with other saints. All but one of the others are Doctors of the Church, except for St Eusebius who is here because he is counted as a founder of the Canons Regular (he forced the clergy of his cathedral at Vercelli to live by a common rule).

The full list of the saints, with the sculptors' names, is below. (Beware of the Vatican website's list, which has one of the sculptors crawling out of his tomb to do the job after being dead for fifty years. This mistake has propagated online.)

Jesus Christ by Paolo Benaglia.
St John the Baptist by Bartolomeo Pincellotti.
St John the Evangelist by Domenico Scaramuccia (NOT Luigi Pellegrini Scaramuccia, died 1680!)
St Gregory the Great by Giovanni Battista de Rossi (scultore romano).
St Jerome by Agostino Corsini.
St Ambrose by Paolo Benaglia again.
St Augustine by Bernardino Ludovisi.
St Athanasius by Pierre de L'Estache.
St Basil by Giuseppe Riccardi OR Giuseppe Maria Frascari.
St John Chrysostom by Giuseppe Maria Frascari again OR Carlo Antonio Tantardini.
St Gregory Nazianzen by Carlo Antonio Tantardini again OR Giuseppe Riccardi again.
St Bernard by Tommaso Brandini OR Tommaso Tomassini.
St Thomas Aquinas by Pascal Latour (from what is now Belgium).
St Bonaventure by Baldassare Casoni (from Carrara).
St Eusebius of Vercelli by Gian Francesco Lazzaroni.

Narthex

The entrance portico or narthex, which measures 10 by 50 metres, is in the lower storey of the entrance block by Galilei. It has a barrel vault coffered in hexagons which are arranged in transverse rows, tessellated with lozenges and with a central relief panel showing the coat-of-arms of Pope Clement XII. This is reflected in the floor, where the heraldry is executed in polychrome marble pietra dura work.

BASILICA of ST JOHN LATERAN -Rome- Oct — The Portico and Ancient Roman Bronze Doors

There are five entrance doors. The main entrance, leading into the central nave, has a pair of ancient bronze doors installed here by Borromini on the orders of Pope Alexander VII. They had been brought from Sant'Adriano, the ancient Curia Iulia or Senate House in the Forum Romanum, and because the doors were slightly too small for the molded marble doorcase Borromini provided a bronze fillet bearing stars from the heraldry of Pope Alexander who was a Chigi. The door to the far right is the Holy Door, which is only open during Holy Years. The tradition used to be that it was otherwise bricked up and that the pope would ceremonially remove a brick at the start of the unblocking at the beginning of the Jubilee. However, Pope St John Paul II changed this and ordered a sculptural bronze door to be installed in 2000. This was designed by Floriano Bodini, and is a single panel showing the Mother and Child standing in front of the crucified Christ. Note the very interesting detail that the nails are through Christ's wrists, not the palms of his hands as usually depicted in art. This is historically correct, as the hands would have torn free if nailed through the palms during crucifixion.

ROME's ST John Lateran - Oct — 4th Century Roman Statue of Constantine in the Portico

To the right is the entrance to the Historical Museum of the Vatican, housed in part of the palace. To the left is a statue of Constantine behind a set of railings, which was found in the ruined Baths of Constantine on the Quirinal (not the Baths of Diocletian). The ruins of these baths were fairly extensive until they were cleared away between 1605 and 1621 to build the Palazzo Rospigliosi. The statue was found in the process, and kept at the Palazzo until purchased in 1704 for the Capitoline Museums. In 1725 a statue of Pope Clement XII was commissioned from Agostino Cornacchini for this location in the narthex, but the pope apparently hated it and had it removed (is it the same statue as the one set up in Ancona in 1738? See photo here). Then the 5th century statue of the emperor was restored by Ruggero Bescapè and set up here in 1737. A slightly different tint to the marble will enable you to see which bits he had to add, amounting to all the lower part of the body as well as the arms.

There are four rectangular bas-relief panels, executed in 1736 on the theme of the life of St John the Baptist. One is over the statue mentioned above, another is over the palace entrance and two are over side entrances:

The Baptism of John by Zechariah, by Bernardino Ludovisi (right hand side entrance).
John the Baptist Preaching in the Desert by Giovanni Battista Maini (left hand side entrance).
John the Baptist Reproves Herod by Pietro Bracci (palace doorway).
The Decapitation of St John the Baptist by Filippo della Valle (over statue).

Close-up of the ancient bronze doors from the Senate House.

Interior

Layout

The central nave is flanked by two aisles on each side (in the English way of describing a church like this, although the Italian equivalent is "five naves"). Off the outer side aisles are external chapels, three large ones with two small ones on the left and two large ones with two small ones on the right.

This nave-and-double-aisle layout is familiarly regarded as typical of an old basilica of this size, but actually what sort of liturgical arrangements had prompted the invention of the plan in the 4th century are a complete mystery.

At the end of the nave is a transept, with a side entrance under the Loggia of Benedictions to the right and an impressive Altar of the Blessed Sacrament to the left. The central altar, with its confessio and baldacchino, is in the transept. The right hand side of the transept has a little chapel off it, and also the entrance to the Treasury. The left hand end has the entrance to the old choir chapel of the canons, beyond which are the Chapter House of the canons and two sacristies, the so-called Sacrestia antica and the Sacrestia dei Canonici.

The 19th century choir is beyond the transept, just before the rebuilt apse.

The cloisters have an entrance off the far end of the outer left hand aisle, just before the transept.

Central nave

Fabric

The central nave is a study in contrasts. There is a spectacular late mediaeval floor, piers and upper side walls in coolly monumental Baroque, and a similarly spectacular Renaissance ceiling.

The standing fabric is by Borromini, whose work has had to endure sneering, hostile and dismissive comments for the last two centuries. If it were regarded in its own right it would receive admiration, but many critics have not been able to look past the accusation of vandalism as regards his alteration to the ancient fabric of the basilica (especially his demolition of the original verde antico side aisle colonnades). This is unfair. The work was sponsored by Pope Innocent X Pamphilj, whose family heraldry features prominently. Look for the dove bearing an olive branch -there are enough of them around.

Borromini replaced central nave arcades having square brick piers ( which had already replaced the original ancient columns) with five massive rectangular piers on each side. He also added two more piers to the counterfaçade, engaged with the wall there and having diagonal inner faces (a very Borrominian detail). The inner face of each of these twelve piers sports a segmentally curved niche containing an identically designed aedicule, in turn containing a colossal white marble statue of one of the apostles. This stands on a black(ish) marble plinth bearing the apostle's name in a palm wreath, and is flanked by a pair of ancient verde antico Composite columns which Borromini scavenged from the demolished aisle arcades. These columns in turn support a bowed (convex) triangular pediment on posts, with the Pamphilj dove in white marble in the tympanum. The cove of the niche and the bow of the pediment create a little saucer dome over the statue, which has star coffering with rosettes. Behind the columns is an identically styled pair of pilasters in red marble, and behind the statue is what looks like a coved doorcase in grey-veined white marble, as if the apostle were just emerging from a door. This represents the gateway to Heavenly Jerusalem, which the apostles guard.

The pair of aedicules flanking the entrance face diagonally up the nave.

Above each aedicule is a rectangular (almost square) stucco relief panel, allegedly originally intended to be in bronze. Above this in turn is an oval fresco tondo in a lush floral wreath. Each aedicule, relief and fresco set is flanked by a pair of gigantic ribbed Composite pilasters with incurved volutes, which do not reach the ceiling and do not actually support anything. This is good evidence of Borromini's original intention of replacing the ceiling with a vault. Above each pair of pilasters is an entablature fragment set back from the capitals, bearing three wreaths containing the Pamphij dove in the middle and crossed palm branches to the sides. These are linked by swags hanging from flaming torches.

In between the piers are five arches, each with a molded archivolt springing from Doric imposts. These imposts and the arch intrados have recesses along their length, containing stucco laurel foliage bundles -except for the two central arches, where the foliage is palm leaves. Also, these two arches have the Pamphilj heraldry on their keystones. Above each arch, except the central two again, is a large rectangular window flanked by Ionic pilasters with the capitals incorporating women's heads and supporting an omega cornice. The curve of the latter touches the ceiling, and contains the Pamphilj dove yet again in a wreath. The central windows are wider, and are in the form of a serliana with two engaged rendered Composite columns supporting a triangular pediment with a broken cornice and flanking a recessed pair of free-standing marble columns supporting a shallowly curved archivolt with That Bird once again in a scallop tablet on the keystone. The archivolt intrudes into the pediment.

As mentioned, the decor of Borromini's work is cool and is predominantly in a light grey tint with the gigantic pilasters looking as if they are in white marble with pale grey veins.

Some commentators think that there are ancient colonnade columns walled up in the piers, but this is uncertain.

Counterfaçade

Because of the diagonal pier faces, the counterfaçade looks like a three-sided apse with gigantic pilasters folded into the corners. The inner pair of these flank the main entrance, which inside is set into an arch having a long epigraph celebrating the restoration by Pope Innocent X in its tympanum. The coat-of-arms of the pope is on the archivolt, while above is a large window looking into the entrance loggia and which has in front of it another serliana resembling those over the central side arches, except here all four columns are free-standing.

Floor

The Cosmatesque floor is from the 14th century, a late example of this technique. It was paid by the Colonna family, and completed in its present form in 1425 under Pope Martin V. The family's heraldic device of a single column can be seen depicted in several places on the floor.

The geometric forms used in this floor are spectacularly intricate, but the colouring is surprisingly pallid and is dominated by light grey hues. The reason for this seems to be that the supply of brightly coloured recycled ancient stone from ruins was drying up by then -there is much less bright yellow giallo antico, dark green serpentine and deep crimson imperial porphyry than in earlier floors of this style. Or perhaps cost was a factor. The rectangular bordering panels in mostly yellowish marbles are by Borromini.

Ceiling

Pope Pius IV (1559-65) commissioned the extant flat coffered wooden nave ceiling of the basilica in 1562. The design is attributed to Pirro Ligorio, the structural carpenters were Vico di Raffaele di Lazzaro and Matteo Bartolini da Castello, the fine-detail woodcarvers were Daniele da Volterra and François "Flaminio" Boulanger, the painter was Luzio Luzi and the gilder was Leonardi Cugni. The work dragged on to 1567, which is why the heraldry of Pope Pius V features. Then in 1775 the ceiling was restored on the orders of Pope Pius VI, who had his own heraldry incorporated in it -there seems to be uncertainty as to how radical a restoration this was.

There are three papal coats-of-arms in the ceiling, occupying the three main coffers: Pope Pius IV (Medici, 1559-1565) in the centre, those of St. Pius V (1566-1572) at the far end and Pius VI (1775-1799) at the entrance. The side coffers feature the Instruments of the Passion in the centre, and Eucharistic symbols at each end. The gilding is fabulously rich, with backgrounds in red and blue with a little green. The Medici heraldry is interestingly incorrect -the balls should be gules (red), not gilded (except the top one, azure with fleur-de-lys or). Why? The heraldry of Pius VI is charming, showing a woman's head blowing on a lily.

Nave statues, reliefs and frescoes

The statues on the nave pillars, installed here during Pope Clement XI's pontificate (1701–1721),

depict the twelve Apostles. They can all be identified by clear attributes, and also have labels on their plinths.

Above the statues are stucco relief panels, with Old Testament scenes on the left and related scenes from the New Testament on the right. These were designed in 1650 by Alessandro Algardi, and executed by his school led by Antonio Raggi and Giovanni Antonio De Rossi. Several of those concerned have been identified by recent documentary research. Above these reliefs are frescoes of prophets in oval tondi, executed in 1718 by a team of artists.

Starting at the left side of the entrance, the statues, reliefs and frescoes on each pier are listed as follows (with the attributes of the apostles concerned given in parenthesis):

Simon the Zealot (book and saw) by Francesco Maratti 1712; relief of Jonah and the Whale; fresco of Micah by Pier Leone Ghezzi.
Bartholomew (own skin and flaying knife) by Pierre Legros 1712; relief of The Crossing of the Red Sea by Michel Anguier; fresco of Obadiah by Giuseppe Chiari.
James the Less (book and staff) by Angelo de Rossi 1715; relief of Joseph being Sold by his Brothers by Francesco Pinazzi; fresco of Joel by Luigi Garzi.
John the Evangelist (book of the Gospel and eagle) made by Camillo Rusconi 1713; relief of The Sacrifice of Abraham by Domenico De Rossi; fresco of Daniel by Andrea Procaccini.
Andrew (St Andrew's cross) by Rusconi again 1709; relief of The Flood by Anguier again; fresco of Baruch by Francesco Trevisani.
Peter (keys) by Pierre-Étienne Monnot 1706; relief of The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise by Giovanni Battista Morelli; fresco of Isaiah by Benedetto Luti.

And on the right side, again starting from the entrance:

Jude or Thaddeus (lance) by Lorenzo Ottoni 1712; relief of The Resurrection of Christ by Giovanni Lazzoni; fresco of Nahum by Domenico Maria Muratori.
Matthew (book of the Gospel) by Rusconi again 1715; relief of Christ entering Limbo by Giovanni Antonio De Rossi; fresco of Jonah by Marco Benefial.
Philip (cross, subduing a dragon) by Giuseppe Mazzuoli 1715; relief of The Arrest of Christ by Alexander Grenoble; fresco of Amos by Giuseppe Nicola Nasini.
Thomas (set square and cross with dove) by Pierre Legros 1711; relief of Jesus Falling under the Cross by Antonio Raggi; fresco of Hosea by Giovanni Odazzi.
James the Great (pilgrim staff) by Rusconi again 1718; relief of The Baptism of Christ by Raggi again; fresco of Ezekiel by Giovanni Paolo Melchiorri.
Paul (sword and book) made by Monnot again 1708; relief of The Crucifixion of Christ by Anguier again; fresco of Jeremiah by Sebastiano Conca.

Triumphal arch

The triumphal arch by Borromini fits rather awkwardly into his design of the central nave. A pair of monumental ancient pink granite Composite columns, with gilded highlights on the capitals, support an archivolt as wide as the nave by means of a pair of posts which are treated as extrusions of a non-existent entablature having an architrave, nave and a cornice of several moldings. The spandrels have frescoes of St John the Baptist, to the left, and St John the Evangelist to the right.

It is surmised that this pair of columns survives from the ancient central nave colonnades.

High altar

Altar itself

The high altar stands in the transept, just behind the triumphal arch and with a confessio or devotional crypt intruding into the nave. This altar is a so-called "Papal altar", reserved for the Holy Father (although, in practice, permission for Mass to be celebrated on it by others is routinely granted).

The altar with its baldacchino was originally part of the restoration of the basilica ordered by Pope Urban V (1362-70) after the previous altar had been destroyed by fire and the collapse of the burning transept roof. The architect was Giovanni di Stefano, who began work here in 1367 and took three years to complete it. However, in 1851 Pope Pius IX employed Filippo Martinucci to provide a new high altar and the present confessio as well as restoring the baldacchino.

The white marble altar faces down the nave. The frontal has vaguely Cosmatesque detailing, with four little barber's pole columns dividing the field into three. Each of these has a Papal coat-of-arms in bronze, the central one being over a circular stellated aperture. From left to right, the shields are of Popes Urban V, Pius IX and Gregory XI. The reason for the aperture is that under the mensa is preserved the alleged wooden tabletop on which St Peter and his successors are said to have celebrated the Eucharist right up to the time that the basilica was built.

Interestingly, the tradition of a portable wooden altar table fits in with the recent suggestion that the popes before the emperor Constantine had no fixed cathedral church, but used whatever commercial premises they could rent for the purpose. The developed tradition is that the table was from the home of St Pudens, with whom St Peter stayed as a guest. This legend is discredited (see Santa Pudenziana for further details).

Baldacchino

The elaborate Gothic baldacchino is by Giovanni di Stefano (another picture), and was consecrated with the altar by Pope Urban V in 1370. Contributions to the cost were made by King Charles V of France and one Pietro Belliforte, whose heraldic shields were incorporated into the decoration in gratitude.

There are four storeys. The first has four columns with gilded capitals, which are not a matching set. Three are in grey granite, but the near left hand one is in bigio antico marble and is Corinthian. The near right hand one is Composite and is in granito dell'Elba, but the two back ones have derivative capitals featuring griffins and are in what is described as granito orientale (Egyptian, from Mons Claudianus?).

These columns support a horizontal entablature, with a frieze in blue with little white rosettes except at the front where an epigraph records the restoration of Pope Pius IX in 1851: Pius IX Pont. Max. in veteram formam restituit, ac splediori cult instauravit, anno D. MDCCCLI. In between the column capitals is pendant Gothic tracery, consisting of three slightly pointed arches each subdivided into two sub-arches with quatrefoils and with a total of three little heraldic shields on each side above the latter. These are described as:

(Nave side) Pope Urban V in the centre, to the right "Cardinal Antonelli" (which one?), to the left Cardinal Angelico de Grimoard.

(Either side) Pope Urban again, flanked by "a nephew" and a blank shield.

(Far side) Pope Urban again, with Grimoard again to the right and Guglielmo d'Agrifoglio to the left.

The vault above the altar, with SS Peter and Paul in relief, is by Giovanni Cosci but was restored in 1804 by Giovan Domenico Fiorentini.

The second storey has three fresco panels on each side, and at each corner above the columns are two statues of saints each with its miniature Gothic canopy. The panels were originally executed by Barna da Siena (it is thought) in 1369, but were repainted by Antoniazzo Romano and his school in the late 15th century. The contribution of Fiorenzo di Lorenzo is also claimed. Giovanni Battista Brughi did some repainting in the Borromini restoration, and finally the restorers in 1851 had a go. So, the present frescoes are hardly 14th century but still look good.

The scenes depicted are:

(Nave side) The Crucifixion with Our Lady and St John the Evangelist, flanked by SS James the Less (?), Paul, Peter and Philip.

(Right side) The Mother and Child with Angels being venerated by a cardinal, and flanked by four more saints who are, left to right, SS Lawrence with his gridiron, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist and Stephen the Protomartyr with one of the stones used to kill him.

(Left side) Christ the Good Shepherd with three saintly bishops and one cardinal, who look like the four Doctors of the Church -St Gregory is certainly the one on the far left, for he has the Dove of the Holy Spirit whispering in his ear, the cardinal looks like St Jerome and the other two would be SS Augustine and Ambrose.

(Far side) The Annunciation and The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, while the right hand panel features St Catherine of Alexandria and St Anthony the Great (?).

After another entablature with larger gilded rosettes, there comes the third storey which is a large open relic chamber. It is protected by gilded bronze railings with a barley-sugar twist ,which were installed by Pope Gregory XI. Each side is flanked by a semi-column which is also twisted, and at the corners are square pillars with recessed centre-strips in blue. The railings are topped by little Gothic arches, above which are bronze vine-scrolls.

In the chamber are two silver-gilt reliquaries (not easy to see through the railings) in which the alleged heads, or parts of

The Gothic Baldacchino and Altar of the Blessed Sacarament

the heads, of SS Peter and Paul are enshrined. These have been here since 1370, when they were moved from the Sancta Sanctorum in the palace. The original 14th century reliquaries were by a goldsmith called Francesco di Bartolo, but they were melted down on the orders of Pope Pius VI in order to pay an indemnity imposed by Napoleon in the Treaty of Tolentino 1797. This vandalism was so embarrassing afterwards that Catholic publications and guidebooks usually described the reliquaries as "looted by the French" -this was not so, but the assertion is still in print. The replacement reliquaries were sponsored by a noblewoman called Maria Emanuela Pignatelli, produced by Giuseppe Valadier and installed in 1804.

The fourth storey is the canopy. This has a spectacular spire with gilded crockets and with gilt vine-scroll decoration, and is accompanied by four gables each with an octofoil aperture containing a bust of one of the Evangelists. Crocketed pinnacles are at the corners, and below the gables are open lunettes containing bronze fanlight grilles with more vines. Each statue bust is accompanied by a pair of heraldic shields, of King Charles, Belliforte, Pope Urban V and Pope Gregory XI.

The vault of the canopy, over the relic-chamber, has constellations of gold stars on a blue background. The blue pigment used here and elsewhere on the baldacchino is ultramarine, in mediaeval times a fabulously expensive material derived from lapis lazuli which had its only source in Afghanistan. The blue bits on the baldacchino were more expensive to do per unit area than the gilded ones.

Confessio

The U-shaped confessio was originally dug out under Pope Sergius II (844-7), at a time when many churches in Rome were given fake catacombs under their high altars in order to accommodate relics of martyrs. The latter were being brought into the city, as the suburban catacombs were abandoned in the face of threats from various marauders. The strange thing here, however, was that there were no major saints' relics venerated in the basilica -the popes in the Middle Ages kept their enormous collection safe in the Sancta Sanctorum at the palace, including the heads of SS Peter and Paul now above the altar.

After being remodelled in the 14th century, when it was a chapel dedicated to St John the Evangelist, the confessio was refitted again in the Baroque restoration under Borromini. Then it was enlarged on the orders of Pope St Pius IX (1846–1878) in 1851, a project which took two years. The gilded bronze Baroque railing was destroyed and replaced by the present balustrade, and shamefully a fresco cycle by Giovanni Battista Brughi was also destroyed.

The void now has a protective open marble screen balustrade, containing decorative bronze railing panels executed in a sort of Gothic spider-web style which is actually quite enjoyable. The single entrance leads to a double staircase with a metal handrail which is also sort-of Gothic. The walls are revetted in polychrome marble work, mostly in a white and red brecciated marble with a dado in greenish grey. There is now no altar, but instead a wooden statue of St John the Baptist standing on an ancient Corinthian column capital. This is by Donato da Formello, and used to be in the saint's chapel next to the baptistery. From 1772 it was kept in the sacristy.

Behind the statue is a Gothic arched doorway, which actually leads into the scavi although never used nowadays. It is blocked by a diapered grid with Gothic detailing.

The bronze tomb-slab of Pope Martin V (1417-1431) is the major item of interest here.

It is by Simone di Giovanni Ghini, a pupil of Donatello, and shows the pope's effigy in shallow relief.The inscription describes him as temporum suorum felicitas, "the joy of his times", and the church can be grateful to him for the nave floor.

As at San Paolo fuori le Mura, visitors have taken to throwing coins into the confessio. The money goes to pious purposes -not to the basilica cleaners' wine fund, even if they would seriously deserve it.

Side aisles

Fabric

Borromini completely re-vamped the side aisles too, dismantling the ancient verde antico colonnades in the process and replacing them with eleven square brick piers on either side having incut corners (including a pair on the transept steps). The style of vaulting is different for the inner and outer aisles, but all is in a pale grey or white with no other colour.

The inner aisles have shallow saucer-domes or cupolas behind the central nave arcade arches, and short barrel vaults behind the piers. Each barrel vault is bounded by a pair of arches in the same style as those of the nave arcades, and these three define the dome pendentives. The fourth arch in each cupola bay encloses the portal into the outer side aisle, which is rectangular; the tympanum of the arch above contains a window. The barrel vaults are undecorated, but the cupolas have thin circular stucco wreaths supported by angel's heads each with four wings.

The outer aisles have flat vaults, with trabeation beams separating the bays and also covering the portals from the inner aisles just mentioned. These beams are supported by angel corbels.

The aisle floors by Bernini have lozenge-shaped tiles in white, black and pale grey which give a trompe l'oeil effect of cubes.

The following description deals with the objects of interest in the inner side aisles first. Then, it starts in the outer side aisle to the right of the entrance and deals with the chapels and other items in anticlockwise order up this aisle and around the back of the high altar and so back down the left hand outer side aisle.

Giotto fresco

In the right hand inner aisle, on the back of the first nave pier, is what looks at first sight to be a fine Baroque funerary monument. It is not, but is a sort of shrine to a fresco fragment from a lost cycle of frescoes within the mediaeval Loggia of Benedictions commissioned by Pope Boniface VIII for the Jubilee of 1300. (This spectacular Loggia should not be confused with the one now over the north transept entrance, but was sited in what is now the main road to the north-east of the obelisk).

See here for a photo of the aedicule, and here for a close-up.

The fresco fragment is attributed to Giotto, although there has been a lot of argument about this. The larger scene of which it is a part has been preserved in a copy of a copy, viewable here. The pope is shown in the loggia blessing a crowd, accompanied by a cardinal and a cleric or monk. The consensus on the event depicted is that it was the opening of the Jubilee, with the cardinal possibly being Francesco Caetani. Other scenes in the cycle are described as having depicted The Baptism of Constantine and The Building of the Lateran Basilica.

While the Loggia was being demolished in 1586, Fulvio Orsini intervened and saved the fragment which was put in the cloisters. However, in 1786 the Caetani family had it brought into the basilica and re-hung behind glass in the present late Baroque aedicule. This has four granite Corinthian columns placed on inward pointing diagonals, which support a Borrominiesque entablature lacking a frieze and with two bowed sections flanking a coved one. In the cove is an ornately flower-garlanded coat-of-arms of Pope Boniface, who was a Caetani (the heraldry is argent two bends wavy azure), and behind this is an attic with a semi-circular cove having tufts of acorns and oak leaves at its ends. An epigraph describing the fresco's history is below the elaborate stucco frame, which has a gable with festoons.

The fresco was restored in 1952, when it was found to be in poor condition and heavily retouched. Unfortunately the loss of surface detail makes it difficult to ascribe the work firmly to the hand of Giotto, instead of his school.

The fresco has its own Italian Wikipedia page here.

Monument of Pope Sylvester II

In 1003, Pope Sylvester II allegedly dropped dead while celebrating Mass in the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. This was regarded at the time as God's vengeance on some enormous sin and, since the popes of the period indulged in all the most obvious sins without harm, the rumour spread that he had been a black magician and a worshipper of Satan. According to the developed legend, his succubus (called Meridiana) told him that he would die if he ever said Mass in Jerusalem. He thought that she meant the city, and forgot about the name of the church. In the Middle Ages it was believed that the bones in his tomb would rattle about when the reigning Pope was about to die, and that his epitaph tablet would sweat moisture.

The mediaeval monument survived until it was destroyed in the Borromini restoration in 1684. It is recorded that when the sarcophagus was broken open, the fully-vested corpse was seen intact before it crumbled away in the fresh air. Borromini provided a cenotaph and included the salvaged epigraph tablet, but this aedicule was also destroyed when the Hungarians provided the present monument in 1907, the architect being Gzila Nalder.

A simple affair behind the second nave pier on this side, the aedicule has the alleged original epigraph at the bottom and a marble bas-relief in two panels within a pedimented frame at the top. The relief depicts the pope conferring the royal title on St Stephen of Hungary, an event that took place in 1001 (actually, the two never met). This marks the emergence of Hungary as a Christian kingdom. The sculptor is given as Josef Damko (1872-1955).

Here is a transcription of the epitaph, believed to have been composed by Pope Sergius IV:

Iste locus mundi Sylvestri membra sepulti, venturo Domino confert ad sonitum, quem dederat mundo celebrem doctissima virgo atque, caput mundi, culmina Romula. Primum Gebertus meruit Francigena sedem Remensis populi, metropolim patriae. Inde Ravennatis meruit conscendere summum Eccesiae regimen, nobilis atque potens. Post annum Romam, mutato nomine, sumpsit, ut toto pastor fieret orbe novus. Cui nimium placuit sociari mente fideli, obtulit hoc Caesar tertius Otto sibi. Tempus uterque comit, praeclarus uterque sophia, gaudet et omne seclum, frangitur omne reum. Clavigeri instar erat, coelorum sede potitus, terna suffectus cui vice pastor erat. Iste, vicem Petri postquam suscepit, abegit lustrali spatio saecula morte sui. Obriguit mundus, discussa pace, triumphus ecclesiae nutans dedidicit requiem. Sergius hunc loculum, miti pietate sacerdos succesorque suus, compsit amore sui. Quisquis ad hunc tumulum devexa lumina vertis, Omnipotens Domine, dic, miserere sui!

("This place gathers together the members of the buried Sylvester, until the sound [of the trumpet] when Christ comes. The Roman summit, the well-learned virgin and head of the world [the Church?], gave this famous one to the world. Firstly Gebert the French-born deserved the the [episcopal] seat of the people of Rouen, the metropolis of the fatherland. Then he, noble and powerful, deserved to ascend to the highest government of the church of Ravenna. After a year, changing his name, he took on Rome so that he would be a new pastor for all the world. Presently Emperor Otto III took him to himself, [for] it pleased him [the emperor?] to associate with a faithful mind. Each [of them] adorns the times, each is distinguished in wisdom, every age rejoices, every guilt is broken. He had the likeness of the key-bearer [St Peter], acquired by the throne of the heavens, adequate to be a pastor on three occasions [Rheims, Ravenna, Rome]. This one, after he took the place of Peter, left the world by his death after a propitius space [of time]. The world weps, peace runs away, the wobbling triumph of the Church gives up rest. Sergius the priest and his successor, in kind piety arranged this little place out of his love. Whoever you are who come to this tomb with the light fading, say 'Almighty God, have mercy on him'!")

The monument has photos at the bottom of the web-page here.

Other monuments in right hand inner aisle

Further on along the right hand inner aisle are three more funerary monuments. The next pier has one to Pope Alexander III (1159-81), designed by Domenico Guidi and set up on the orders of Pope Alexander VII in 1660. It has a coved entablature in yellow Siena marble, on four Corinthian columns in alabaster on a background of verde antico green marble. In the cove is an ornate coat-of-arms presumably (and anachronistically) meant to be of Alexander III, while the stylized-mountains-and-star finials flanking this are from the coat-of-arms of Alexander VII. The central epitaph is in black marble, bowed, with a white marble portrait medallion on top. The whole lot stands on a high curved plinth in Siena marble.

Then comes another memorial commissioned by Pope Alexander VII, this one to Pope Sergius IV (1009-12). This has a fragment of the pope's original monument, a relief effigy of the pope giving a blessing, which has been inserted into a capsule-shaped tondo surrounded by a wreath with spiky stars (from Pope Alexander's heraldry). This is flanked by a pair of angel caryatid pilasters, and topped by a coat-of-arms flanked by the mountains-and-star device again.

Finally, there is a monument to Cardinal Ranuccio Farnese 1565, by Guglielmo della Porta. The cardinal was a nephew of Pope Paul III. The monument has a black marble epitaph tablet in an molded white marble frame, flanked by a pair of verde antico Corinthian columns supporting a broken triangular pediment. An elliptical relief coat-of-arms is in the break, and above is a smaller segmental pediment. On the slopes of the first pediment are reclining statues of female allegories, Faith and Prudence, by a Milanese sculptor recorded as Antonio Peracha. (The attribution of the monument to Vignola seems to be a mistake propagated online.)

The tomb of Cardinal Ranuccio Farnese, is by Vignola, from the 16th century.

Left hand inner aisle

Diego Angeli, writing in 1903, mentioned that the confessionals in this aisle were decorated with bronze relief showing scenes from the life of Christ by one T. A. Mazzani 1864. Was this Tommaso Mazzani, one of the canons and a noted architect?

The memorials on the piers are as follows:

Giuseppe Lanciuti 1625.

Girolamo Garimberto 1575, with a good portrait bust of this impressively bearded bishop. His cathedral city is now Galižana in Croatia.

Alessandro Burgio 1613, who had been the Vicar (second-in-command after the Archpriest) of the basilica, and was a popular man according to the witness of his epitaph.

Cardinal Lucio Sassi 1604. His memorial has a pair of black marble Doric columns flanking a large slightly elliptical tondo, which contains an interesting (although damaged) portrait fresco of the cardinal in his scarlet robes. The pigment used in these is vermilion -a deadly poisonous compound of mercury.

Elena Savelli 1570. This monument is historically important, and was carefully moved by Borromini from the bottom of the right hand aisle. It is claimed as the first extant example in Rome of a funerary memorial with a portrait bust, which here is in bronze with the deceased turning to her right and clasping her hands in prayer. There are also three bronze medallions, depicting The Resurrection of Christ, The Angel of Judgment and The Resurrection of the Dead. The design is by Jacopo Del Duca from Sicily, with the actual bronze-casting being done by his brother Lorenzo.

Orsini Chapel

At the bottom of the far right hand side aisle, next to the Holy Door, is the tomb of Paolo Mellini. He was a Roman citizen who died of plague in 1527, and who has been confused with others of his family (especially those in the Cappella Mellini at Santa Maria del Popolo. The monument has a recumbent effigy, above which Borromini created a trompe l'oeil looking like a coved back-wall when it is actually only slightly curved. A pair of pilasters with flaming urn finials frames the composition, and the curve of the backing fits under an oval window with a molded frame in grey marble. Above the effigy is a very badly damaged fresco of the Madonna and Child, inspired by Melozzo. It allegedly came from the Colosseum, and was put here in 1669 (it did not belong to the memorial originally). Photos are here.

Borromini provided similar but charmingly different aedicules for salvaged memorials under the other windows in the aisle, and it is worth comparing the designs of these.

The entrance to the Orsini Chapel follows, which is dedicated to the Assumption of Our Lady. This little chapel was allegedly designed by Borromini, but was re-fitted in 1729. It has the plan of a transverse rectangle with a tiny apse at each end, and an altarpiece depicting the Immaculate Conception by Placido Costanzi. Here is an epigraph commemorating Marie Anne de la Trémoille, nicknamed La Princesse des Ursins after she married into the Orsini family.

Between this and the next chapel is a monument of Cardinal Giulio Acquaviva, Duke of Atri. It was originally executed by Isaia da Pisa in 1574, but was re-modelled by Borromini to whom belongs the oval window and the trompe-l'oeil backing in grey marble which looks as if it is a curved portico with four pairs of Doric semi-columns. The items from the original memorial are the epitaph, a bronze coat-of-arms above this and two flanking statues in scallop-topped niches which portray allegories of Temperance and Prudence. The former is fully clothed and holds a snake, but the latter is almost nude and was a rather risky sculpture for the time.

Torlonia Chapel

The second chapel off the right hand outer aisle is a large one dedicated to St John Nepomucene (although there is no artistic evidence of this). It was commissioned by Prince Alessandro Torlonia and erected by Quintiliano Raimondi in 1838, with the help of a noted team of sculptors. This edifice is claimed to have been the last privately owned funerary chapel for a noble family in a church in Rome. Its construction entailed the demolition of a previous chapel, which had frescoes by Sebastiano Conca.

The plan is based on a Greek cross, with shallow side arms and slightly longer entrance and apse arms. The fabric is a very sumptuous late neo-Classical design, with intricate gilded stucco decoration in and around the dome. Unfortunately the gate is kept locked, so usually you have to content yourself with peeping in.

The dominating central dome having a large oculus and coffering containing rosettes, which is in squares getting smaller as the oculus is approached. The dome rests on an attic plinth made up of a frieze in alabaster and a dentillate cornice, and this in turn rests on the true entablature which has a frieze with elaborate frond decoration in stucco including acanthus leaves. This entablature is supported on pendentives, which are defined by the short coffered barrel vaults of the cross arms. They contain hexagonal relief panels depicting the Evangelists, by Pietro Galli. The pendentives are on wide diagonal piers, the corners of which are embellished with white marble ribbed Corinthian pillars which support another entablature running round the interior.

The walls look as if they are revetted in coloured stone. There's a high dado in what looks like red marble, and a sub-frieze below the entablature in green. The walls in between are in yellow. The floor has a radial pattern of trapezoids in polychrome marble, focusing on a large circular grille in curlicued bronze work which opens into the funerary crypt.

The Torlonia family Chapel, St John Lateran-2008 485

The altar has an aedicule comprising a triangular pediment supported by a pair of ribbed Corinthian columns. The altarpiece is a marble relief of The Deposition of Christ, which was executed by Pietro Tenerani in 1844. The frontal with a main panel of lapis lazuli and side panels of Russian malachite, both framed in Oriental alabaster. The back wall of the sanctuary is also revetted in the latter stone.

There are statues of allegorical virtues in niches flanking the altar and the entrance. Those facing the altar are Fortitude by Filippo Gnaccarini, and Temperance by Achille Stocchi. Those by the entrance are Justice by Vincenzo Grassi and Prudence by Angelo Bezzi. Unfortunately the latter died before he could finish Prudence, so she was completed by a sculptor called Dante.

The memorial to Giovanni Torlonia is to the right. This is recorded as having been begun by Luigi Mainoni, continued by Giuseppe Chialli and finished by Giuseppe Barba of the latter's school. Piety is listed as being by Stocchi, and Faith by Bezzi. Opposite is a memorial to Anna Torlonia 1848, also by Barba with Religion by Vincenzo Gajassi and Hope by Filippo Gnaccarini.

The incredibly ornate and curvaceous bronze railings at the entrance, with four candlesticks and a central cross, are by Giacomo Luswergh, whose family was originally from Bavaria but had been in Rome since the 16th century.

The chapel has its own little sacristy (inaccessible to visitors). This contains a relief of The Entombment of Christ by Galli.

Massimo Chapel

The third chapel off the right hand outer aisle is another large one, and is used for some of the public Masses in the basilica (see section below on "Liturgy"). It is dedicated to the Crucifixion, which is confusing since there is also a Chapel of the Crucifix off the right hand end of the transept. Giacomo della Porta designed it in 1564 for Faustina Massimo as a funerary chapel for her family. Unfortunately it has solid wooden doors, and if these are locked you cannot see anything.

The chapel has a square plan, with a little rectangular barrel-vaulted sanctuary. It has Doric pilasters supporting an entablature with triglyphs on its frieze, and with double triglyph posts over the capitals. Over the entablature is an attic from which the vault springs. The sanctuary has a short barrel vault, intruding into the attic and with two rows of octagonal coffers. The 20th century floor has an interesting pattern in polychrome marble tiles, designed by Ildo Avetta.

The altar has an aedicule with a pair of Ionic columns in pavonazzetto marble supporting the separated ends of a triangular pediment that has its central section missing. In the void is a double curlicue device. The altarpiece is a Calvary by Girolamo Siciolante, Il Sermoneta. Above the pediment is a very large stucco scallop-shell, fitted into the curve of the vault.

Outside the chapel is the monument of Cardinal Cesare Rasponi (died 1675), a historian of the basilica. The impressive polychrome marble monument is by Filippo Carcani, and has a central niche flanked by a pair of Doric columns in pavonazzetto marble. This contains a sculpture of a man and a flying angel holding a portrait medallion, very much in the style of Bernini. A photo is here.

A marble relief panel including statue of St James the Great by the school of Andrea Bregno is in this location, dating from 1492. A photo is here.

Entrance to the palace

There follows the entrance lobby to the palace, designed by Fontana but altered by Borromini. To the left of the stairs is a statue of Cardinal Pietro Gasparri by Enrico Tadolini 1941. This impressive but rather academic work in polychrome marble, old-fashioned for the time, shows the cardinal kneeling at a prie-dieu within an arched niche.

Casati monument

Further on is a Borromini-and-Cosmatesque memorial to the Milanese Cardinal Conte Casati (died in 1287), whose name is often erroneously given as Giussano. The aedicule by Borromini is possibly the best of his set under the oval windows, and features a ball-bounce cornice under the window, which is supported by four caryatids having fruit-baskets on their heads. The work is in a greenish-grey marble, but the anatomy of the caryatids and the pair of flaming-vase finials on top are in white. A photo is here.

This aedicule contains the cardinal's original epitaph in the lower centre. Above, there are three original Cosmatesque items. A pair of blind Gothic arches with two-light tracery on geometric mosaic flanks a sculptural relief with a mosaic background containing many gilded tesserae. Note that the tracery of the arch on the left has a quatrefoil, but the right hand one has an eight-petalled rose. The relief has Gothic fan tracery above it, and features a kneeling cardinal being presented to Christ by St John the Baptist. The cardinal holds a Gothic pinnacle. A close-up photo is here.

There is a persuasive hypothesis that these three elements do not come from the original tomb of Casti, but were from the altar of St Mary Magdalene that stood in the nave in front of the schola cantorum of the mediaeval basilica. Other elements from this destroyed work are in the cloister. If this is correct, the artist responsible was Deodato Cosma and the cardinal depicted is Giovanni Colonna, who sponsored the altar.

Chapel of St John the Evangelist

There follows a second little chapel, dedicated to St John the Evangelist. This is dominated by the enormous round-headed fresco over the altar (which has no aedicule). This shows St John having a vision of Our Lady while writing the Book of Revelation; the reference is Rev. 12:1. The artist was Lazzaro Baldi.

The famous Renaissance humanist Cardinal Tommaso Inghirami 1516, who had the pseudonym Phaedrus, was buried here. He was part of the brilliant cultural ambience at Rome which was destroyed in the Sack of 1527.

The monument to Cardinal António Martins de Chaves 1447 is the last thing in this aisle. The original memorial was by Isaia da Pisa, and Borromini incorporated salvaged elements in a truly sumptuous coved aedicule in red marble with green back-panelling. The cardinal is shown recumbent on his sarcophagus, with a weeper standing at each end. Behind the effigy are standing Our Lady in prayer, accompanied by St Anthony of Padua and a female saint holding a stemmed cup. A close-up of the surviving mediaeval elements is here.

You now go up some steps into the transept.

Chapel of the Crucifixion

The chapel is also known as the Chapel of St John the Evangelist (there is also a chapel of that name in the baptistry), and the Ceci Chapel after the donor.

On the right side is the tomb of Cosimo Inghirami.

There is a statue which probably depicts Pope Boniface VIII; it however is also possible that it is Boniface IX (1389-1404).

Cardinal Carlo Rezzonico is buried here, in a tomb by Antonio d'Este made in 1803. Also found here is the tomb of the humanist Valla, a Canon Regular of the Lateran. It was originally located in the church, possibly in this chapel, but was moved to the cloister. In 1825, it was moved back here; all this is recorded in the inscription.

To the left of the entrance to the chapel is the tomb of Pope Innocent III (died 1216), made by Giuseppe Luccheti in 1891 on orders from Pope Leo XIII.

Also nearby is the funerary monument of Cardinal Antonio di Portogallo by Isaia da Pisa.

Leonine portico

The portico was built by Virginio Vespignani 1876–1886.

Apse and sanctuary

The choir behind the high altar was rebuilt in the late 19th century by Virginio Vespignani; he completed work in 1884. The apse was moved some twenty metres backwards, allowing a larger choir while at the same time preserving the mosaic.

The apse mosaic was made 1291–1292 by two Franciscan friars, Jacopo da Camerino and Jacopo Torriti, on orders from Pope Nicholas IV. You can see their self-portraits among the Apostles below the main mosaic. The Pope kneeling close to the Blessed Virgin is Nicholas IV, who was praised for his work at the Lateran by Dante in Paradiso. The Virgin places her hand on his head, as a sign of her protection. Above the gemmed crucifix, which was reused from a 9th century mosaic, is the Holy Spirit, shown as a dove. Water flowing from its beak divides into four streams, symbolizing the four-fold Gospel, which run into the Jordan, a symbol of Baptism. The city between the streams is Heavenly Jerusalem, and in the city the phoenix, a symbol of immortality, is perched on the Tree of Life. Sts Peter and Paul, and an armed angel, are guarding the city. To the left of the Blessed Virgin stands, besides Nicholas IV, St Francis of Assisi and the Apostles Peter and Paul. To the right of the crucifix are Sts John the Baptist, Antony of Padua, John the Evangelist and Andrew.

In the upper part of the mosaic, dated to the 4th century but restored and incorporated into the main mosaic in the 13th century, is Christ's head surrounded by seraphim. This is not merely decoration, but a reference to the tradition that Christ appeared during the original consecration of the basilica. The motif occurs in other places too, such as on farms in the countryside that are or were owned by the Lateran.

Between the windows below are mosaics of seven more Apostles, with the two artists at their feet. They carry their own attributes, the set square, compasses and mason's hammer.

The episcopal throne (picture), the two organs, the frescoes on the side walls and the arms of Pope Leo XIII in the ceiling of the choir all date to the late 19th century rebuilding.

Transept

The transept was designed by Giacomo della Porta and Cavalier d'Arpino at the end of the 16th century. They were commissioned by Pope Clement VIII.

It is raised four steps from the level of the nave. The ceiling here was preserved by Borromini; in its centre is a gilded bust of Christ flanked by Sts Peter, Paul, John the Evangelist and John the Baptist, made in 1592 by Taddeo Landini. To the sides are the arms of Pope Clement VIII.

Above the side entrance, near the Chapel of the Crucifixion, is an organ designed in 1598 by Luca Blasi and Giovanni Battista Montano. The decorations around it have a musical theme.

In each arm of the transept, there are five reliefs of Angels at Prayer by the Mannerist Camillo Mariani.

There is also a cycle of frescoes depicting scenes from the Life of Constantine. They were painted at the end of the 16th century by the Mannerists Pomarancio, Paris Nogari and Giovanni Battista Ricci. In the right arm of the transept are The Baptism of Constantine, Pope Sylvester is Found on Mt Soratte, The Foundation of the Lateran Basilica, The Consecration of the Lateran Basilica. Above the frescoes are figures of the Apostles.

Shop and treasury

A shop has been opened off the right arm of the transept. The Treasury, a museum, lies beyond this shop. There is a fee to enter the Treasury, which has mainly late Renaissance vestments, but also some other objects. Among the most interesting items are the "Golden Rose", a papal gift associated with Laetare Sunday, and a crucifix, probably of the 14th century but close to the Romanesque style, with biblical scenes.

In the corridor are remains of the Medieval basilica, and the tombs of the painters Andrea Sacchi (died 1661) and Cavalier d'Arpino (died 1640).

Colonna Chapel and Winter Choir of the Canons

The chapel was designed by Giacomo Rainaldi for the Colonna family c. 1625. The woodcarvings are his work. The painting of Christ between the two Sts John is by Baciccia. In the vault is the fresco The Coronation of the Virgin by Baldassare Croce.

Altar of the Blessed Sacrament

The altar, made by Pier Paolo Olivieri c. 1600, enshrines a table traditionally said to be that used by

Christ at the Last Supper. The marble and bronze columns incorporated in the altar are said to have been taken from the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol. The bronze columns in that temple had been recast from the bronze prows of Cleopatra's ships, taken in battle by Emperor Augustus.

To the right of the altar, above the door to the sacristy is a monument to Pope Leo XIII, who is buried in the church, by Giulio Tadolini. It was made in 1907. The pope is depicted in benediction, flanked by a the personification Faith and a worker. The latter may seem out of place; it is a reference to the Encyclical Rerum novarum, in which Leo XIII dealt with the question of work in systematic manner. The document was instrumental in bringing about the modern social doctrine of the Church.

Cloisters

The Cloister at St John Lateran, decorated in the Cosmatesque style by the Vassalletti Family -4 (2) — The Cloister decorated by the Vassalletti Family

The entrance to the cloisters is at the end of the left aisle near the transept. They were decorated in the Cosmatesque style by the Vassalletti. Much of the mosaic is lost, and the cloisters are in a general state of disrepair. This is probably a result of neglect during the period when the papacy was based at Avignon in the 14th century.

There are many fragments of ancient and medieval sculpture here. Some of them are said to be relics, such as a porphyry slab said to be the stone

The 13th century Cloister at St John Lateran, decorated in the Cosmatesque style by the Vassalletti Family — The 13th century Benedictine Cloister

on which the soldiers diced for Christ's robes. No ancient tradition supports this claim, which seems very unlikely. Among the more interesting object are a bust of St Helena from the 4th century and the tomb of of Cardinal Riccardo Annibaldi by Arnolfo di Cambio, 13th century.

There is a small fee to enter the cloisters.

Lancellotti Chapel

The chapel was originally designed by Francesco da Volterra 1585–1590, and rebuilt c. 1675.

To the right of the entrance is a monument to Cardinal Girolamo Casanate by Pierre Legros.

Chapel of the Transition

The Death of the Virgin Mary is of the school of Giotto, 14th century.

To the right of the entrance is the tomb of Cardinal Bernardino Caracciolo, from the 13th century.

Corsini Chapel

The chapel was designed by Alessandro Galilei in 1734–1736.

The monument to Pope Clement XII (Lorenzo Corsini) is by Giovanni Battista Maini and Carlo Monaldi, c. 1740. Clement XII is buried in the crypt beneath the chapel. The tomb of Cardinal Neri Maria Corsini is also by Maini.

On the right side of the entrance is the tomb of Gerardo da Parma, first Dean of the basilica, and on the left side a statue of Riccardo degli Annibaldi attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio, made c. 1276.

Baptistery

Lateransbaptisterium — The Lateran baptistery

In the early Church, baptism was usually given by the bishops in an annual ceremony during the Easter Vigil. In Rome, this was done in the baptistery of this church, which was dedicated to St John the Baptist. This was the first structure built for this specific purpose in Rome. It is a separate building, and is today usually accessed through a side entrance. The main entrance is the one facing the basilica (through the Chapel of St Venantius), making it easy to move in procession from the basilica.

The baptistery was ordered by Constantine. Its octagonal shape is typical of early baptistries. The huge font allowed candidates to stand in water (supplied by the ancient aqueduct Aqua Claudia) to their knees while more water was poured over their heads three times. This is known as partial immersion, and became common in the West at an early stage. The structure was restored by Pope Sixtus III in the 5th century, and the lower level now appears much as it did at that time. The second level and the dome were redesigned in 1637.

The doctrine of baptism as spiritual rebirth, and the sacrament's connection to the sacrifice of Christ, is set out in eight inscriptions. As an example, one of them reads: FONS HIC EST VITAE, QUI TOTUM DILUIT ORBEM SUMENS DE CHRISTI VULNERE PRINCIPIUM, meaning "This is the fountain of life, which cleanses the whole world, taking its course from the wound of Christ".

With time, the dedication of the baptistry came to be used about the basilica as a whole, and it was also applied to both the Baptist and the Evangelist.

A legend claims that Constantine was baptized here by Pope Sylvester. This is not true; the Church historian Eusebius explains that Constantine was baptized on his deathbed in Constantinople.

Another tradition is that it was here that Pope St Gregory the Great (590-604) first transcribed the Gregorian chant.

Pictures in Wikimedia Commons.[1]

Chapel of St Venantius

The main entrance to the baptistery is, as mentioned, through this chapel.

The mosaics are from the 7th century. They were commissioned by Pope John IV (640–642) in honour of the Dalmatian martyrs. John IV was a Dalmatian himself, and seeing that the Slavs where overrunning his country he brought the relics of the more important Dalmatian saints here. The mosaic is crowned by a bust of Christ emerging from a cloud, flanked by angels. Below is the Blessed Virgin standing in prayer with Apostles and other saints by her side. It appears to have been made by local artists influenced by the Byzantine tradition.

Chapel of St Secundus and St Rufina

The chapel was originally an inner portico, but was later transformed into an oratory by adding altars dedicated to Sts Secundus, Rufina or Rufinus, Andrew, and Luke.

The mosaic, with a pattern of twining acanthus, is from the 5th century.

The Crucifixion is of the school of Andrea Bregno.

Chapel of St John the Evangelist

The chapel was built by Pope St Hilarius (461–468), and the dedicatory inscription can still be seen above the door.

The vault is decorated with a 5th century mosaic of the Lamb of God surrounded by a wreath of seasonal fruits. This is a good example of an early Christian mosaic in the Classical style.

The bronze doors from 1196 shows the front and interior of the Medieval basilica. They were made by Uberto and Pietro da Piacenza.

Chapel of St John the Baptist

The doors to the chapel are ancient, and are said to be made of an alloy of bronze, silver and gold. They give a pleasing sound when they move on their hinges, and the attendants are usually willing to demonstrate this if you ask them, unless there are too many people in the church.

The statue of the saint is by Valadier.

Access

The basilica's website gives the following daily opening times:

Basilica: 7:00 to 18:30 (Tel. 06.98.86433).

Sacristy: 8:00 to 12:00, 16:00 to 18:00 (Tel. 06.698.86433).

Cloisters: 9:00 to 18:00 (there is an entry charge of two euros).

Baptistery (in practice, the parish church): 7:00 to 12:30, 16:00 to 19:00 (Tel. 06.698.86452).

Museum of the Basilica: 10:00 to 17:30 (Tel. 06.698.86409).

Historical Archives: 8:30 13:00 Monday to Friday only (Tel. 06.698.86580).

Liturgy

Basilica

Mass is celebrated in the basilica itself:

Weekdays:

7:00 (Altare del Santissimo Sacramento)

7:30 (Cappella Massimo) (Not July and August)

8:00 (Cappella dell'Adorazione)

9:00 (Cappella Massimo)

10:00 (Cappella Massimo) (Not July and August)

11:00 (Cappella Massimo) (July and August, Cappella Adorazione)

12:00 (Cappella dell’Adorazione) (Not July and August)

17:00 (Cappella dell’Adorazione) (Not Saturdays; 18:00 during Daylight Saving Time in summer).

Sundays and Solemnities:

16:00 SATURDAY OR VIGIL (Altare Papale)

18:00 SATURDAY OR VIGIL (Altare Papale)

7:00 (Altare del Santissimo)

8:00 (Cappella dell’Adorazione)

9:00 (Altare Papale)

10:00 (Altare Papale)

11:30 (Altare Papale)

12:30 (Altare Papale)

16:00 (Altare Papale) (Not August)

17:00 (Altare Papale) (Not July and August)

18:00 (Altare Papale)

Confessions are heard: 7:00 to 12:00, and 15:30 to 18:30.

Baptistery

The baptistery functions as the parish centre and the parish office is here, but obviously it is also the venue for the celebration of baptisms.

The diocesan web-page for the parish advises:

Mass on weekdays 7:50 (not July or August) and 18:00;

Mass on Sundays and Solemnities 11:00 and 18:00;

Baptisms are celebrated on Saturdays at 11:00 and 16:00, also Sundays at 9:30 and 16:00;

There is a "Students' Mass" (Messa Universitari) on Sundays at 19:00;

Rosary on Wednesday at 18:30.

HOWEVER, the parish web-site as at May 2015 advises only one daily Mass for the period June to September 2015, at 18:00.

Also, baptisms take place in this period on Saturdays 10:00 to 11:00 and 16:00 to 17:00, also Sundays 10:00 to 12:30 and 16:00 to 17:00.

Feast-day

The feast-day of the dedication of the basilica, celebrated by the entire Church, is 9 November and for its liturgy the basilica should be referred to simply as dedicated to Christ the Saviour, as laid down in the revised Roman martyrology.

The official name of the basilica in Italian is Santissimo Salvatore e Santi Giovanni Battista ed Evangelista in Laterano. However, this full title is not used for liturgical purposes.

The celebration has a rank of "Feast of the Lord" in the General Calendar, which means that it replaces any Sunday on which the date falls (most Feasts in the General Calendar of the Roman Catholic Church are supplanted by a Sunday, but Candlemas and the Transfiguration are other examples of Feasts of the Lord). It is a Solemnity in the Diocese of Rome.

External links

Template:Commons

Official diocesan web-page
Italian Wikipedia page
Pictures of the basilica at Wikimedia Commons
Google Earth
Nolli map 1748
Basilica's website (hosted by the Vatican)
High-resolution virtual tours (part of the above website)
Website of the baptistry (also of the parish)
Info.roma web-page
Brian McMorrow's gallery on Pbase
Gallery by Autrey on Angelfire
Romeartlover's web-page on the basilica
Romeartlover's web-page on the piazza
Constantius's obelisk (Article from Platner's "A Topographical History of Ancient Rome" 1929)
Rome-Guide web-page
Medioevo.roma web-page
A plan of the basilica on Planetware

The Seven Churches

@@ Line 655: / Line 655: @@
 Then comes another memorial commissioned by Pope Alexander VII, this one to Pope [[wikipedia:Pope_Sergius_IV|Sergius IV]] (1009-12). This has a fragment of the pope's original monument, a relief effigy of the pope giving a blessing, which has been inserted into a capsule-shaped tondo surrounded by a wreath with spiky stars (from Pope Alexander's heraldry). This is flanked by a pair of angel caryatid pilasters, and topped by a coat-of-arms flanked by the mountains-and-star device again.
-Finally, there is a monument to Cardinal [[wikipedia:Ranuccio_Farnese_(cardinal)|Ranuccio Farnese]] 1565, by [[wikipedia:Guglielmo_della_Porta|Guglielmo della Porta]]. This has a black marble epitaph tablet in an molded white marble frame, flanked by a pair of ''verde antico ''Corinthian columns supporting a broken triangular pediment. An elliptical relief coat-of-arms is in the break, and above is a smaller segmental pediment. On the slopes of the first pediment are reclining statues of female allegories, ''Faith ''and ''Prudence, ''by a Milanese sculptor recorded as Antonio Peracha. (The attribution of the monument to [[wikipedia:Giacomo_Barozzi_da_Vignola|Vignola]] seems to be a mistake propagated online.)
+Finally, there is a monument to Cardinal [[wikipedia:Ranuccio_Farnese_(cardinal)|Ranuccio Farnese]] 1565, by [[wikipedia:Guglielmo_della_Porta|Guglielmo della Porta]]. The cardinal was a nephew of Pope [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_III Paul III]. The monument has a black marble epitaph tablet in an molded white marble frame, flanked by a pair of ''verde antico ''Corinthian columns supporting a broken triangular pediment. An elliptical relief coat-of-arms is in the break, and above is a smaller segmental pediment. On the slopes of the first pediment are reclining statues of female allegories, ''Faith ''and ''Prudence, ''by a Milanese sculptor recorded as Antonio Peracha. (The attribution of the monument to [[wikipedia:Giacomo_Barozzi_da_Vignola|Vignola]] seems to be a mistake propagated online.)
+The tomb of Cardinal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranuccio_Farnese_%28cardinal%29 Ranuccio Farnese], is by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacopo_Barozzi_da_Vignola Vignola], from the 16th century.
 ==== Left hand inner aisle ====
@@ Line 673: / Line 675: @@
 === Orsini Chapel ===
-At the bottom of the far right hand side aisle, next to the Holy Door, is the tomb of Paolo Mellini. He was a Roman citizen who died of plague in [[1527]], and who has been confused with others of his family (especially those in the ''Cappella Mellini ''at [[Santa Maria del Popolo]]. The monument has a recumbent effigy, above which Borromini created a trompe l'oeil looking like a coved back-wall when it is actually flat. A pair of pilasters with flaming urn finials frames the composition, and the curve of the backing fits under an oval window with a molded frame in grey marble. Above the effigy is a very badly damaged [[fresco]] of the ''Madonna and Child'', inspired by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melozzo_da_Forl%C3%AC Melozzo]. It allegedly came from the Colosseum, and was put here in 1669 (it did not belong to the memorial originally). Photos are [https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/EO6RHE6VZIRCDRE2CD2YIEQETOJUUJOH here].
+At the bottom of the far right hand side aisle, next to the Holy Door, is the tomb of Paolo Mellini. He was a Roman citizen who died of plague in [[1527]], and who has been confused with others of his family (especially those in the ''Cappella Mellini ''at [[Santa Maria del Popolo]]. The monument has a recumbent effigy, above which Borromini created a trompe l'oeil looking like a coved back-wall when it is actually only slightly curved. A pair of pilasters with flaming urn finials frames the composition, and the curve of the backing fits under an oval window with a molded frame in grey marble. Above the effigy is a very badly damaged [[fresco]] of the ''Madonna and Child'', inspired by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melozzo_da_Forl%C3%AC Melozzo]. It allegedly came from the Colosseum, and was put here in 1669 (it did not belong to the memorial originally). Photos are [https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/EO6RHE6VZIRCDRE2CD2YIEQETOJUUJOH here].
+Borromini provided similar but charmingly different aedicules for salvaged memorials under the other windows in the aisle, and it is worth comparing the designs of these.
-The entrance to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orsini_family Orsini] Chapel follows, which is dedicated to the Assumption of Our Lady. This little chapel was allegedly designed by Borromini, but was re-fitted in 1729. It has the plan of a transverse rectangle with a tiny apse at each end, and an altarpiece depicting the ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Conception Immaculate Conception] ''by [[wikipedia:Placido_Costanzi|Placido Costanzi]]. Here is an epigraph commemorating [[wikipedia:Marie_Anne_de_La_Trémoille,_princesse_des_Ursins|Marie Anne de la Trémoille]], nicknamed ''La Princesse des Ursins ''after she married into the Orsini family.
+The entrance to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orsini_family Orsini] Chapel follows, which is dedicated to the [[wikipedia:Assumption_of_Mary|Assumption]] of Our Lady. This little chapel was allegedly designed by Borromini, but was re-fitted in 1729. It has the plan of a transverse rectangle with a tiny apse at each end, and an altarpiece depicting the ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Conception Immaculate Conception] ''by [[wikipedia:Placido_Costanzi|Placido Costanzi]]. Here is an epigraph commemorating [[wikipedia:Marie_Anne_de_La_Trémoille,_princesse_des_Ursins|Marie Anne de la Trémoille]], nicknamed ''La Princesse des Ursins ''after she married into the Orsini family.
 Between this and the next chapel is a monument of Cardinal [http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giulio_Acquaviva_d%27Aragona Giulio Acquaviva], Duke of Atri. It was originally executed by [http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaia_da_Pisa Isaia da Pisa] in [[1574]], but was re-modelled by Borromini to whom belongs the oval window and the trompe-l'oeil backing in grey marble which looks as if it is a curved portico with four pairs of Doric semi-columns. The items from the original memorial are the epitaph, a bronze coat-of-arms above this and two flanking statues in scallop-topped niches which portray allegories of ''Temperance'' and ''Prudence''. The former is fully clothed and holds a snake, but the latter is almost nude and was a rather risky sculpture for the time.
@@ Line 697: / Line 701: @@
 === Massimo Chapel ===
-The third chapel off the right hand outer aisle is another large one, and is used for some of the public Masses in the basilica. It is dedicated to the Crucifixion, which is confusing since there is also a Chapel of the Crucifix off the right hand end of the transept. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_della_Porta Giacomo della Porta] designed it in 1564 for Faustina [[wikipedia:Massimo_family|Massimo]] as a funerary chapel for her family.
+The third chapel off the right hand outer aisle is another large one, and is used for some of the public Masses in the basilica (see section below on "Liturgy"). It is dedicated to the Crucifixion, which is confusing since there is also a Chapel of the Crucifix off the right hand end of the transept. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_della_Porta Giacomo della Porta] designed it in 1564 for Faustina [[wikipedia:Massimo_family|Massimo]] as a funerary chapel for her family. Unfortunately it has solid wooden doors, and if these are locked you cannot see anything.
+The chapel has a square plan, with a little rectangular barrel-vaulted sanctuary. It has Doric pilasters supporting an entablature with [[wikipedia:Triglyph|triglyphs]] on its frieze, and with double triglyph posts over the capitals. Over the entablature is an attic from which the vault springs. The sanctuary has a short barrel vault, intruding into the attic and with two rows of octagonal coffers. The 20th century floor has an interesting pattern in polychrome marble tiles, designed by [http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ildo_Avetta Ildo Avetta].
+The altar has an aedicule with a pair of Ionic columns in ''[[wikipedia:Pavonazzo_marble|pavonazzetto]] ''marble supporting the separated ends of a triangular pediment that has its central section missing. In the void is a double curlicue device. The altarpiece is a ''Calvary ''by [[wikipedia:Girolamo_Siciolante_da_Sermoneta|Girolamo Siciolante]], ''Il Sermoneta. ''Above the pediment is a very large stucco scallop-shell, fitted into the curve of the vault.
+Outside the chapel is the monument of Cardinal [http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Maria_Antonio_Rasponi Cesare Rasponi] (died [[1675]]), a historian of the basilica. The impressive polychrome marble monument is by [http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/carcani-filippo-detto-filippone_%28Dizionario_Biografico%29/ Filippo Carcani], and has a central niche flanked by a pair of Doric columns in ''pavonazzetto ''marble. This contains a sculpture of a man and a flying angel holding a portrait medallion, very much in the style of [[wikipedia:Gian_Lorenzo_Bernini|Bernini]]. A photo is [http://requiem-projekt.de/db/pic_ausgabe.php?pictID=2159&PHPSESSID=cdf533c1e3af09ed3d8ac1ad961a2e2e here].
+A marble relief panel including statue of St [[wikipedia:James,_son_of_Zebedee|James the Great]] by the school of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Bregno Andrea Bregno] is in this location, dating from 1492. A photo is [[commons:File:San_Giovanni_in_Laterano_Jacobus.JPG|here]].
+=== Entrance to the palace ===
+There follows the entrance lobby to the palace, designed by Fontana but altered by Borromini. To the left of the stairs is a statue of Cardinal [[wikipedia:Pietro_Gasparri|Pietro Gasparri]] by Enrico Tadolini 1941. This impressive but rather academic work in polychrome marble, old-fashioned for the time, shows the cardinal kneeling at a [[wikipedia:Prie-dieu|prie-dieu]] within an arched niche.
+=== Casati monument ===
+Further on is a Borromini-and-[[wikipedia:Cosmatesque|Cosmatesque]] memorial to the Milanese Cardinal [http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/conte-casati_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/ Conte Casati] (died in [[1287]]), whose name is often erroneously given as Giussano. The aedicule by Borromini is possibly the best of his set under the oval windows, and features a ball-bounce cornice under the window, which is supported by four caryatids having fruit-baskets on their heads. The work is in a greenish-grey marble, but the anatomy of the caryatids and the pair of flaming-vase finials on top are in white. A photo is [https://www.flickr.com/photos/dealvariis/8100345368/in/album-72157631799457517/ here].
+This aedicule contains the cardinal's original epitaph in the lower centre. Above, there are three original Cosmatesque items. A pair of blind Gothic arches with two-light tracery on geometric mosaic flanks a sculptural relief with a mosaic background containing many gilded tesserae. Note that the tracery of the arch on the left has a quatrefoil, but the right hand one has an eight-petalled rose. The relief has Gothic fan tracery above it, and features a kneeling cardinal being presented to Christ by St John the Baptist. The cardinal holds a Gothic pinnacle. A close-up photo is [http://catalogo.fondazionezeri.unibo.it/foto/160000/141600/141390.jpg here].
+There is a persuasive hypothesis that these three elements do not come from the original tomb of Casti, but were from the altar of St Mary Magdalene that stood in the nave in front of the ''schola cantorum ''of the mediaeval basilica. Other elements from this destroyed work are in the cloister. If this is correct, the artist responsible was Deodato Cosma and the cardinal depicted is [[wikipedia:Giovanni_Colonna_(cardinal,_1295-1348)|Giovanni Colonna]], who sponsored the altar.
+=== Chapel of St John the Evangelist ===
-The chapel has a square plan, with a little rectangular barrel-vaulted sanctuary. This contains an aedicule which has a pair of Ionic columns in ''[[wikipedia:Pavonazzo_marble|pavonazzetto]] ''marble supporting the separated ends of a triangular pediment that has its central section missing. In the void is a double curlicue device. The altarpiece is a ''Calvary ''by [[wikipedia:Girolamo_Siciolante_da_Sermoneta|Girolamo Siciolante]], ''Il Sermoneta. ''
+There follows a second little chapel, dedicated to St [[wikipedia:John_the_Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]. This is dominated by the enormous round-headed fresco over the altar (which has no aedicule). This shows St John having a vision of Our Lady while writing the [[wikipedia:Book_of_Revelation|Book of Revelation]]; the reference is Rev. 12:1. The artist was [[wikipedia:Lazzaro_Baldi|Lazzaro Baldi]].
+The famous Renaissance humanist Cardinal [[wikipedia:Tommaso_Inghirami|Tommaso Inghirami]] 1516, who had the pseudonym ''Phaedrus, ''was buried here. He was part of the brilliant cultural ambience at Rome which was destroyed in the [[wikipedia:Sack_of_Rome_(1527)|Sack]] of 1527.
-The fragment of a statue of St James above the metal grating has been attributed to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Bregno Andrea Bregno]; it was moved here from the old San Pietro in Vaticano.
+The monument to Cardinal [[wikipedia:António_Martins_de_Chaves|António Martins de Chaves]] 1447 is the last thing in this aisle. The original memorial was by [http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaia_da_Pisa Isaia da Pisa], and Borromini incorporated salvaged elements in a truly sumptuous coved aedicule in red marble with green back-panelling. The cardinal is shown recumbent on his sarcophagus, with a weeper standing at each end. Behind the effigy are standing Our Lady in prayer, accompanied by St [[wikipedia:Anthony_of_Padua|Anthony of Padua]] and a female saint holding a stemmed cup. A close-up of the surviving mediaeval elements is [http://www.aviewoncities.com/gallery/showpicture.htm?key=kveit5892 here].
-Outside the chapel the tomb of Cardinal [[Cesare Rasponi]] (died [[1675]]), a historian of the basilica. A statue of St James by the school of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Bregno Andrea Bregno] is here.
+You now go up some steps into the transept.
-In the same area is the Cosmatesque tomb of the Milanese Cardinal Conte Casati (died in [[1287]]). The sarcophagus from the same year was erected by Cardinal Giacomo Colonna. Above it is a bas relief, ''Cardinal Colonna is presented to Christ by St John'', made by [[Deodato]] in [[1297]]. The tomb of Cardinal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranuccio_Farnese_%28cardinal%29 Ranuccio Farnese], nephew of Pope [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_III Paul III], is by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacopo_Barozzi_da_Vignola Vignola], from the 16th century. The monument to Cardinal Antonio Martinez-Chiavez is by [http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaia_da_Pisa Isaia da Pisa], made in the 15th century. The frame was added by Borromini.
 ==Chapel of the Crucifixion==
@@ Line 938: / Line 961: @@
 * [http://www.battisterolateranense.it/ Website of the baptistry] (also of the parish)
 * [http://www.info.roma.it/monumenti_dettaglio.asp?ID_schede=611 Info.roma web-page]
+* [http://www.pbase.com/bmcmorrow/stjohnlateran&page=all Brian McMorrow's gallery on Pbase]
+* [http://autrey.angelfire.com/basilica_san_giovanni.htm Gallery by Autrey on Angelfire]
 * [http://www.romeartlover.it/Vasi46.html Romeartlover's web-page on the basilica]
 * [http://www.romeartlover.it/Vasi34.html Romeartlover's web-page on the piazza]