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| “CHRISTIAN ROME”: The Visits |
| LATERAN EXCAVATIONS, THE APOSTOLIC
PALACE AND THE SANCTA SANCTORUM |
Duration: 2 hours
Beginning of Itinerary: Line B “St. Paul”, Stop
14 (Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano) |
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| This visit brings us to discover the less
noted aspects of the Lateran complex, which are important,
both from the religious and historical point of view.
The Basilica was constructed on the lands donated by Constantine.
These areas were first home to the rich private residences
of the Lateran families and later the barracks of the
Equites Singulares, a group of elite knights that was
dissolved because it placed its services at the hands
of Massenzio, the adversary of Constantine. Go down into
the underground of the basilica in order to travel together
with the archeologists through the complex history of
this area. Visit the Lateran Apostolic Palace that substitutes
in the late 1500s, according to the will of Sixtus V,
the by now crumbling Patriarchate, the official seat of
representation of the palace. See the beautiful chambers
of representatives carefully affrescoed, the Vatican Historical
Museum, which gathers the testimonies relative to pontifical
protocol and to the arms and uniforms of the numerous
military corps that have the responsibility of protecting
the Pope. The chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum is all that
remains, together with the relic of the Holy Stairs, the
architectural remnants conserved underground, and the
heavily restored mosaic of the Lateran Triclinium of the
ancient Lateran Patriarchate, the residence of the pontiffs
from the paleo-Christian era through the end of the Middle
Ages. Today nothing remains of this sumptuous palace but
a vague memory in a few traces and in the ancient drawings,
since that which remained of it was razed to the ground
in the late 1500s by Pope Sixtus V in order to erect the
current palace. |
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