The Apse Mosaics of St. John Lateran
The apsidal mosaics of the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome are arranged in three tiers. In the half-dome at the top shines the image of Christ’s head and shoulders surrounded by angels and clouds of glory. Below, flanking the dove of the Holy Spirit and a jeweled cross, stand the Virgin and a row of saints. Below them are four windows and another row of saints. The central tier is the most elaborate and bears a closer examination. Reading from left to right, the saints are Paul and Peter, a smaller St. Francis, and the Virgin with her hand resting on the tiny figure of a pope. On her other hand, beyond the cross, stand one patronal saint, John the Baptist; St. Anthony, also small in scale; then the other patronal saint, John the Evangelist; and St. Andrew. From the central cross flow four rivers into one, from which deer and sheep are drinking, and beneath it is the phoenix, symbol of immortality.
The First Western Basilica
The mosaics are meaningful and beautiful in themselves, but as we shall see, they also illustrate the physical changes, alterations, additions, and legends that adhere to them, that happen to ancient churches, rather like the process of accretion on a coral reef. The mosaics were not always as we see them now. The church of St. John Lateran was the first of the great Christian basilicas built by Constantine in the fourth century, the “Mother and Head of all the churches in Rome and in the world,” the Primatial Basilica and seat of the bishop of Rome, that is, the pope. It was dedicated in AD 324 and is the oldest of the basilicas in the Western world.
St. John Lateran stands on the site of a Roman fort demolished by Constantine after his victory at the Milvian Bridge, which had established him as emperor. The basilica building of the adjacent palace of the Laterani family was expanded to become the new church. Originally, the apse was plain gold, but according to legend, during the dedication of the church to Christ the Savior, Christ himself appeared and left the imprint of his face upon the dome, one of the images made acheiropoieton, without human hands.
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Mary Elizabeth Podles is the retired curator of Renaissance and Baroque art at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the author of A Thousand Words: Reflections on Art and Christianity (St. James Press, 2023). She and her husband Leon, a Touchstone senior editor, have six children and live in Baltimore, Maryland. She is a contributing editor for Touchstone.
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