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Scala Santa e Sancta Sanctorum

Historic site · Esquilino, Italy

The sanctuary on piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano holding twenty-eight white marble steps sheathed in wood, flanked by four further flights, which pilgrims climb on their knees. The complex also holds the chapel of San Lorenzo in Palatio, called the Sancta Sanctorum, which was the popes' private chapel until the early fourteenth century and which holds the Lateran Acheropita; the chapel of San Lorenzo; the oratory of San Silvestro in Palatio; and the chapel of the Crucifix behind the Sancta Sanctorum. No source states its opening hours, so none are given here.

History

The building is the complex Sixtus V raised at the end of the sixteenth century as the new patriarchate, built by Domenico Fontana in 1589. The sanctuary's own site records that the Passionists were called to its custody by Pius IX in 1854. The Scala Santa is named in the Holy See's own published list of its extraterritorial properties in Rome, whose first item reads «il complesso di S. Giovanni in Laterano (Basilica, Palazzo Apostolico Lateranense con gli edifici annessi e la Scala Santa)», and in Annex II, Tavola 1 of the Lateran Treaty of 11 February 1929. Article 15 of that treaty provides that such property, «benché facenti parte del territorio dello Stato italiano» — although forming part of the territory of the Italian State — enjoys the immunities that international law grants to the seats of the diplomatic agents of foreign States. It stands on Italian soil, in the rione Esquilino, and visitors there are subject to Italian law.

Visit

Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano, Roma RM

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