Everything about St John Lateran Basilica totally explained
The
Basilica of St. John Lateran — in
Italian, the
Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano — is the
cathedral church of Rome and the official ecclesiastical seat of the
Bishop of Rome, who is the
Pope. Officially named
Archibasilica Sanctissimi Salvatoris ("Archbasilica of the Most Holy
Saviour"), it's the oldest and ranks first (being the cathedral of Rome) among the four
major basilicas of Rome, and holds the title of
ecumenical mother church (mother church of the whole inhabited world) among
Roman Catholics. The current
archpriest of St. John Lateran is
Camillo Cardinal Ruini,
Cardinal Vicar General for the Diocese of Rome.
An inscription on the façade,
Christo Salvatore, dedicates the Lateran as Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour, for the cathedrals of all patriarchs are dedicated to Christ himself. As the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, containing the papal throne (
Cathedra Romana), it ranks above all other churches in the Roman Catholic Church, even above
St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.
Lateran Palace
The site on which the Basilica sits was occupied during the early
Roman Empire by the
palace of the
gens Laterani. The Laterani served as
administrators for several
emperors; Sextius Lateranus was the first
plebeian to attain the rank of
consul. One of the Laterani, Consul-designate Plautius Lateranus, became famous for being accused by
Nero of conspiracy against the emperor. The accusation resulted in the confiscation and redistribution of his properties.
The
Lateran Palace fell into the hands of the emperor when
Constantine I married his second wife
Fausta, sister of
Maxentius. Known by that time as the "Domus Faustae" or "House of Fausta," the Lateran Palace was eventually given to the Bishop of Rome by Constantine. The actual date of the gift is unknown but scholars believe it had to have been during the pontificate of
Pope Miltiades, in time to host a
synod of
bishops in
313 that was convened to challenge the Donatist
schism, declaring
Donatism as
heresy. The palace
basilica was converted and extended, eventually becoming the cathedral of Rome, the seat of the popes as bishops of Rome.
The official dedication of the Basilica and the adjacent Lateran Palace was presided over by
Pope Sylvester I in
324, declaring both to be
Domus Dei or "House of God." In its interior, the Papal Throne was placed, making it the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome. In reflection of the basilica's primacy in the world as mother church, the words
Sacrosancta Lateranensis ecclesia omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput are incised in the main door, meaning "Most Holy Lateran Church, of all the churches in the city and the world, the mother and head."
The Lateran Palace and basilica have been rededicated twice.
Pope Sergius III dedicated them to
Saint John the Baptist in the
10th century in honor of the newly consecrated
baptistry of the Basilica.
Pope Lucius II dedicated the Lateran Palace and basilica to
Saint John the Evangelist in the
12th century. However, St. John Baptist and St. John the Evangelist are regarded as co-patrons of the Cathedral, the chief patron being Christ the Saviour himself, as the inscription in the entrance of the Basilica indicates, and as is tradition in the patriachal cathedrals. Thus, the Basilica remains dedicated to the Saviour, and its titular feast is the
Transfiguration. That is why sometimes the Basilica will be referred to by the full title of
Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour and of Sts. John Baptist and John Evangelist in the Lateran.
(External Link
) The church became the most important shrine in honor of the two saints, not often jointly venerated (but see
Peruzzi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence). In later years, a
Benedictine monastery was established at the Lateran Palace, devoted to serving the basilica as a
devotional to the two saints.
Every pope from Miltiades occupied the Lateran Palace until the reign of the French
Pope Clement V, who in
1309 decided to transfer the official seat of the Catholic Church to
Avignon, a papal fief that was an enclave within
France. During the
Avignon papacy, the Lateran Palace and the basilica began to decline. Two destructive fires ravaged the Lateran Palace and the basilica, in
1307 and again in
1361. In both cases, the Avignon papacy sent money to their bishops in Rome to cover the costs of reconstruction and maintenance. Despite the action, the Lateran Palace and the basilica lost their former splendor.
When the Avignon papacy formally ended and the Bishop of Rome again resided in Rome, the Lateran Palace and the basilica were deemed inadequate considering the accumulated damage. The popes took up residency at the
Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere and later at the
Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. Eventually, the
Palace of the Vatican was constructed, and the papacy moved in; the papacy remains there today.
Pope Sixtus V tore down the original Lateran Palace and basilica and commissioned replacements. The rebuilt Lateran Palace and the Basilica became separate entities. Today the Lateran Palace is home to the
Pontifical Museum of Christian Antiquities.
The square in front of the Lateran Palace has a red granite
obelisk, the largest in the world, erected by
Thutmose III in
Karnak. It was removed to Rome by
Constantius II in
357 and re-erected in the
Circus Maximus. Sixtus V had it re-erected in
1587 on its present site.
The Lateran Palace has also been the site of five
Ecumenical councils. See
Lateran councils.
The
President of the French Republic is
ex officio the "first and only honorary canon" of the basilica, a title inherited from the
Kings of France who held it since
Henri IV.
Reconstruction
There were several attempts at reconstruction of the basilica before Pope Sixtus V's definitive project. Sixtus hired his favorite architect
Domenico Fontana to oversee much of the project. Further renovation of the interior ensued under the direction of
Francesco Borromini, commissioned by
Pope Innocent X. The twelve niches created by his architecture came to be filled by 1718 with statues of the apostles, using the most prominent Roman Rococo sculptors:
Camillo Rusconi (
Andrew,
Matthew,
James the Greater, John the Evangelist),
Francesco Moratti (Simon),
Angelo de' Rossi (James the Less),
Giuseppe Mazzuoli (
Philip),
Lorenzo Ottoni (Thaddeus), and the Frenchmen
Pierre-Étienne Monnot (
Peter,
Paul) and
Pierre Le Gros the Younger (
Bartholomew,
Thomas).
The vision of
Pope Clement XII for reconstruction was an ambitious one: he launched a competition to design a new façade. Over 23 architects, mostly working in the current
Baroque idiom competed. The putatively impartial jury was chaired by
Sebastiano Conca, president of the Roman
Academy of Saint Luke. The winner of the competition was
Alessandro Galilei. The façade as it appears today was completed in
1735. Galilei's façade however removed all vestiges of traditional ancient basilica architecture, and imparted a neo-classical facade.
Architectural history
An apse lined with mosaics and open to the air still preserves the memory of one of the most famous halls of the ancient palace, the "
Triclinium" of
Pope Leo III, which was the state banqueting hall. The existing structure (
illustration, below left) isn't ancient, but it's possible that some portions of the original mosaics have been preserved in the three-part mosaic of its niche: in the centre Christ gives their mission to the Apostles, on the left he gives the keys to St. Sylvester and the
Labarum to Constantine, while on the right St. Peter gives the papal
stole to Leo III and the standard to
Charlemagne.
Some few remains of the original buildings may still be traced in the
city walls outside the Gate of St. John, and a large wall decorated with paintings was uncovered in the eighteenth century within the basilica itself, behind the Lancellotti Chapel. A few traces of older buildings also came to light during the excavations made in 1880, when the work of extending the apse was in progress, but nothing was published of real value or importance.
A great many donations from the popes and other benefactors to the basilica are recorded in the
Liber Pontificalis, and its splendour at an early period was such that it became known as the "Basilica Aurea", or Golden Basilica. This splendour drew upon it the attack of the
Vandals, who stripped it of all its treasures.
Pope Leo I restored it around 460, and it was again restored by
Pope Hadrian, but in
897 it was almost totally destroyed by an earthquake—
ab altari usque ad portas cecidit "it collapsed from the altar to the doors"— damage so extensive that it was difficult to trace the lines of the old building, but these were in the main respected and the new building was of the same dimensions as the old. This second church lasted for four hundred years and then burnt in 1308. It was rebuilt by
Pope Clement V and
Pope John XXII, only to be burnt down once more in
1360, but again rebuilt by
Pope Urban V.
Through these various vicissitudes the basilica retained its ancient form, being divided by rows of columns into aisles, and having in front a
peristyle surrounded by colonnades with a fountain in the middle, the conventional Late Antique format that was also followed by the old
St Peter's. The façade had three windows, and was embellished with a mosaic representing Christ, the Saviour of the World. The porticoes were frescoed, probably not earlier than the twelfth century, commemorating the
Roman fleet under
Vespasian, the taking of
Jerusalem, the Baptism of the Emperor Constantine and his
"Donation" of the Papal States to the Church. Inside the basilica the columns no doubt ran, as in all other basilicas of the same date, the whole length of the church from east to west, but at one of the rebuildings, probably that which was carried out by Clement V, the feature of a transverse nave was introduced, imitated no doubt from the one which had been added, long before this, at
Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. Probably at this time the church was enlarged.
Some portions of the older buildings still survive. Among them the pavement of medieval
Cosmatesque work, and the statues of
St. Peter and
Saint Paul, now in the
cloisters. The graceful
baldacchino over the high altar, which looks so utterly out of place in its present surroundings, dates from
1369. The
stercoraria, or throne of red marble on which the popes sat, is now in the
Vatican Museums. It owes its unsavoury name to the anthem sung at the papal enthronement, "De
stercore erigens pauperem" ("lifting up the poor out of the dunghill", from Psalm 112).
From the fifth century there were seven oratories surrounding the basilica. These before long were incorporated in the church. The devotion of visiting these oratories, which held its ground all through the medieval period, gave rise to the similar devotion of the seven altars, still common in many churches of Rome and elsewhere.
Of the façade by
Alessandro Galilei (1735), the cliché assessment has ever been that it's the façade of a
palace, not of a church. Galilei's front, which is a screen across the older front creating a
narthex or vestibule, does express the nave and double aisles of the basilica, which required a central bay wider than the rest of the sequence; Galilei provided it, without abandoning the range of identical arch-headed openings, by extending the central window by flanking columns that support the arch, in the familiar
Serlian motif. By bringing the central bay forward very slightly, and capping it with a pediment that breaks into the roof balustrade, Galilei provides an entrance doorway on a more-than-colossal scale, framed in the paired colossal
Corinthian pilasters that tie together the façade in the manner introduced at
Michelangelo's
palace on the Campidoglio.
Holy Steps
The
Scala Sancta (Holy Stairs), wooden steps that encase white marble steps, are, according to Roman Catholic tradition, the staircase leading once to the praetorium of
Pilate at
Jerusalem, hence sanctified by the footsteps of Jesus Christ during his
Passion. The marble stairs are visible through openings in the wooden risers. Their translation from Jerusalem to the complex of palaces that became the ancient seat of popes in the fourth century is credited to
Saint Helena, mother of the Emperor
Constantine I.
In 1589,
Pope Sixtus V relocated the steps to their present location in front of the ancient palatine chapel (the Sancta Sactorum).
Ferraù Fenzoni completed some of the frescoes on the walls.
Lateran cloister
Between the basilica and the city wall there was in former times the great monastery, in which dwelt the community of monks whose duty it was to provide the services in the basilica. The only part of it which still survives is the 13th-century
cloister, surrounded by graceful twisted
columns of inlaid
marble. They are of a style intermediate between the
Romanesque proper and the
Gothic, and are the work of
Vassellectus and the
Cosmati. This beautiful cloister dates to the early
13th century.
Lateran baptistry
» Main article: Lateran Baptistery.
The octagonal Lateran Baptistry stands somewhat apart from the basilica. It was founded by
Pope Sixtus III, perhaps on an earlier structure, for a legend grew up that
Constantine I had been baptized there and enriched the structure. (He was actually baptised in the East, by an
Arian bishop.) This baptistry was for many generations the only baptistry in Rome, and its octagonal structure, centered upon the large basin for full immersions provided a model for others throughout Italy, and even an iconic motif of
illuminated manuscripts, "The
fountain of Life".
Papal Tombs
There are six papal tombs inside the basilica:
Alexander III (right aisles),
Sergius IV (right aisles),
Clement XII Corsini (left aisle),
Martin V (in front of the confessio) by
Simone Ghini I ;
Innocent III (right transept); and
Leo XIII (left transept), by G. Tadolini (1907). The latter was the last pope not to be entombed in
St. Peter's Basilica.
Twelve Apostles
The twelve niches created by Borromini's architecture went empty for decades till in 1703 when
Pope Clement XI encouraged the completion of the decoration, by sponsoring a competition to select the designs for larger-than-life sculptures of the apostles. A committee established led by Carlo Fontana and Carlo Marratti, selected from among the most prominent late
baroque sculptors in Rome, including:
Roman Catholic liturgy
In the
liturgical calendar of the
Roman Catholic Church,
November 9 is the
feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, often referred to in older missals as the Dedication of the Basilica of St. Saviour (or the holy Saviour).
Archpriests of the Basilica of St. John Lateran
Francesco Saverio de Zelada (1781 – 1801)
Leonardo Cardinal Antonelli (1801 – 1811)
Bartolomeo Cardinal Pacca (1830 – 1844)
Benedetto Cardinal Colonna Barberini di Sciarra (28 April 1844 – 10 April 1863)
Lodovico Cardinal Altieri (1863 – 1867)
Costantino Cardinal Patrizi Naro (1867 – 1876)
Flavio Cardinal Chigi (24 December 1876 – 1885)
Raffaele Cardinal Monaco La Valetta (1885 – 1896)
Francesco Cardinal Satolli (16 December 1896 – 8 January 1910)
Pietro Cardinal Respighi (10 January 1910 – 22 March 1913)
Domenico Cardinal Ferrata (7 April 1913 – 10 October 1914)
Basilio Cardinal Pompilj (28 October 1914 – 5 May 1931)
Francesco Cardinal Marchetti-Selvaggiani (26 August 1931 – 13 January 1951)
Benedetto Aloisi Cardinal Masella (27 October 1954 – 30 August 1970)
Angelo Cardinal Dell'Acqua (7 October 1970 – 27 August 1972)
Ugo Cardinal Poletti (26 March 1973 – 17 January 1991)
Camillo Cardinal Ruini (17 January 1991 - present)Further Information
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