Rome - Basilica of St John Lateran San Giovanni in Laterano
Before the Popes established their residence in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican after their return from exile in Avignon they lived mainly in the Lateran; and St John Lateran has remained the episcopal church of the Pope. Various additions and alterations were carried out in the fifth, eighth, 10th, 13th and 15th centuries, and in the 16th and 17th centuries the church was almost completely rebuilt.
The west porch, the interior and the main facade were entirely refashioned at this period. During medieval times the church was put under the patronage of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist. The basilican plan of the church, with its porch, narthex, five-aisled apse, presbytery and apse, was established in the original Constantinian church and respected in the Baroque rebuilding.
In the Confessio at the foot of the altar is the bronze tomb of Pope Martin V (on which it is a Roman custom to throw a coin) - one of the numerous tombs of great persons, both ecclesiastical and lay, which the church contains. In the apse (beyond the presbytery), which was widened by Pope Leo XIII (1878-84), are some very fine mosaics - faithful copies of early Christian originals, renewed by Torriti in the 13th century - depicting Christ surrounded by angels and (below, on either side of a jeweled cross) various saints, including St Francis of Assisi and St Antony of Padua. The valuable decoration and furnishings of the church have given it an air of rather cold magnificence. The Cloister (Chiostro: entrance in left-hand aisle), a masterpiece of 13th century architecture by a family of Roman artists, the Vassalletti, should not be missed.
The wide facade with its huge statues by Alessandro Galilei (c. 1735) is a masterpiece of late Baroque architecture. Note also the bronze doors of the main doorway which came from the ancient Curia in the Forum, and the Holy Door (far right). The interior, 130m/427ft long, was refashioned by Borromini on the occasion of Holy Year 1650, with massive piers along the nave and tall figures of Apostles (4.25m/14ft high), by various sculptors, in the niches. The magnificent timber ceiling dates from the 16th c. Above the Papal altar (Altare papale) is a tabernacle-like baldachin in which the heads of the Apostles Peter and Paul are preserved (shown by custodian: tip). Here, too, is a wooden altar at which the earliest Popes, Peter's immediate successors, are said to have officiated.
The inscription on the facade of St John Lateran claims the status of "Mater et caput omnium ecclesiarum urbis et orbis" ("Mother and head of all the churches of the City and the world"). A beginning was made in A.D. 313 with the building of a large church dedicated to the Savior on the ruins of the palace of the Laterani and of a barracks. This was accordingly the first of the four "patriarchal" basilicas - the others being St Peter's, San Paolo fuori le Mura and Santa Maria Maggiore - and the most venerable of the seven pilgrimage churches of Rome (the four patriarchal churches, together with Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, San Sebastiano and San Lorenzo fuori le Mura). This status was confirmed by the holding of general councils of the Church in St John Lateran in 1123, 1139, 1179, 1215 and 1512.
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