Better Lateran than never

[jere7my]

Monday, June 29 - Rome

Saint John Lateran is the highest church in Roman Catholicism. #1. El guapo. Most people expect that to be Saint Peter's in the Vatican (at least I did), but the papal cathedra (throne) is here, and that makes it the mother church for all Catholics. Within its ridiculously opulent walls are (ostensibly) the heads of the apostles Peter and Paul, the table at which Jesus ate the Last Supper, and St. Peter's altar, which is built into the high altar, which only the Pope may use (and then only if he's been very good).

The cathedral abuts the city walls of Rome — if you could look over your shoulder, you'd see the Aurelian Wall and the Porta Asinaria ("gate of the donkeys"). (You can see a bit of wall in the lower left, below the umbrella pines.) The orange building is the Lateran Palace, where the popes lived for a thousand years before moving to the Palace of the Vatican. It was a gift to the Bishop of Rome from the emperor Constantine, who aquired it when he married his second wife, Fausta; the palace hosted the bishops when they convened to declare Donatism a heresy in 313. Constantine also built the cathedral, as well as the baptistry next door. The obelisk in front (see below) was built by Thutmose III in the 15th century BC, moved to the Circus Maximus by Constantine's son Constantius II in 357 AD, and erected in front of St. John Lateran by Sixtus V in 1587. (Sixtus V never saw an obelisk he didn't want to move somewhere.)

We were only there by chance — it was a public transportation node, between catacombs and San Clemente. Fortunate fools we.

Looking back from the other side of the wall, it looks like the saints and popes are on a treetop expedition. The guy in back is checking a map: "Hey, guys?"


The aforementioned obelisk — the largest in the world.


The baptistry.


The mosaic apse, and the papal cathedra. That's the most important chair in Western religion.


The baldacchino above the High Altar. Within that cage are the reliquaries holding the heads of Peter and Paul:




Pipes of the organ, featuring God as Triangle Man. There's another old organ with pedal-powered bellows in the nave:


I thought about how sucky it would've been to be the acolyte tasked with working the bellows all during mass.


In a pit below the High Altar, John the Baptist guards the entrance to the confessio (crypt).


Flying baby-pope-head guarding the Corsini Chapel.


The amazing gilded coffered ceiling. Those are the arms of Pope Clement VIII.


Leo XIII was a pretty cool pope — he opened the Vatican Secret Archives to researchers, and insisted that science and religion could co-exist peacefully — but this statue makes him look like Pope Dracula. He was the last pope to not be buried in St. Peter's.


This is the tomb of Cardinal Casati, brilliant with Cosmatesque mosaic work.


A Benedictine monastery was founded in the Middle Ages to watch over the church; this gorgeous, spiral-pillared cloister is all that remains. Art and artifacts from St. John Lateran are displayed all along the ambulatory:


A Cosmatesque pillar.


When this fresco of Mary was damaged, the monks looked beneath the plaster to discover...another, much older, fresco of Mary. Someone had plastered her over and copied what they remembered on top. Here, she's still only partially exposed.


A particularly Muppety sphinx in the cloister.


An unexpected find. Legend says that this is where Saint Ambrose obtained the caffè d'orzo (dulce) that he then upended over the head of Saint Bartleby during a dispute over biscuits.


Across the street, this mosaic is a replica of the (now lost) apse of the Triclinium Leoninum, a banquet hall from the Lateran Palace. That's Constantine in the upper left, holding the banner.

More pix here.

Comments

[jaipur.livejournal.com]

As always, very spiffy. :)