Lateran Palace

The Apostolic Palace of the Lateran (Latin: Palatium Apostolicum Lateranense), informally the Lateran Palace (Latin: Palatium Lateranense; Italian: Palazzo del Laterano), is an ancient palace of the Roman Empire and later the main papal residence in Rome.

Located on Saint John's Square in Lateran on the Caelian Hill, the palace is adjacent to the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran, the cathedral church of Rome. The wealthy Lateran (Laterani) family held the palace estate during the Roman Empire, and the estate eventually came into the hands of the Emperor Constantine the Great who gifted it to Pope Miltiades who was residing at the Basilica of Santa Pudenziana.

From the fourth century, the palace was the principal residence of the popes, and continued so for about a thousand years until the Apostolic Residence ultimately moved to the nearby Vatican. The palace is now used by the Vatican Historical Museum, which illustrates the history of the Papal States. The palace also houses the offices of the Diocese of Rome, as well as the residential apartments of the Cardinal Vicar, the pope's delegate for the daily administration of the diocese. Until 1970, the palace was also home to the important collections of the Lateran Museum, now dispersed among it and other parts of the Vatican Museums.

The building that stands today, after many waves of construction and destruction since Roman times, is nearly all from the rebuilding begun in the 1580s to the designs of Domenico Fontana. This is a rectangular building with a central courtyard, higher but less sprawling and so smaller than the medieval palace, of which only fragments remain, themselves largely rebuilt later. The Leonian Triclinium, the end wall of a great medieval hall, and the Santa Scala or "Holy steps" are the largest of these.

Text adapted from “Lateran Palace” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lateran Palace ranks #145 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #12 of the 452 mapped in Italy. Founded c. 1550, it is older than 39% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 718 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 21,535 times in the last 60 days, more than 97% of the atlas. 63 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Rome, 2 km away. See how Italy compares in the castle statistics.

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