“There is no holier place in the world than this,” declares a bold inscription on the central lintel of the Sancta Sanctorum. Nestled in the sprawling complex of the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, the Sancta Sanctorum is known in Latin as the “Holy of Holies.” The private chapel is a rare, surviving piece of Gothic architecture in a building that is now largely defined by its Renaissance and Baroque renovations.
To many, the chapel’s claim to sanctity is not unfounded. Located in the traditional seat of the papacy and one of the oldest churches in Christendom, this small space is home to a great number of holy relics, collected by the Roman popes through the centuries and venerated by millions in the Catholic world.
On top of the altar stands encased the famous “acheiropoieta,” an 8th-century icon of Jesus Christ believed to be painted “not by human hands.” In the Middle Ages, it would be carried in processions on important feast days in the liturgical year.
Center of Western Christendom
While some visit the chapel for its religious significance, others go for the art. Above the row of standing saints added in the later Renaissance, the upper walls of the chapel are filled with fresco paintings from around 1278, not commonly seen even in the Eternal City. They were created at a historic moment, when Rome was reasserting itself as the political and religious center of Western Christendom. Art became a key vehicle for that message.
One central theme of the paintings is martyrdom. Rather than depicting the life cycle of one particular saint, the pictures single out five different moments of death, almost all occurring in Rome during the persecution of the Christians. Peter, the first pope, is shown crucified upside down, as tradition has it that he deemed himself unworthy of dying like Christ. The apostle Paul is beheaded, with milk rather than blood miraculously flowing from his neck. Stephen and Lawrence, deacons of the early church, are respectively stoned to death and burned on a gridiron. Agnes, barely a teenage girl, is sentenced to death by beheading for her resolute faith.
Pope Nicholas and St. Nicholas
Whereas the martyrdom scenes served to recall the special spiritual significance of the papal city, the singular episode from the life of St. Nicholas must be seen through a different lens.
According to legendary accounts, the early Christian bishop saved three girls from being forced into prostitution by secretly dropping sacks of gold coins through their window at night, so that their father could pay for their dowries. When the father discovered and thanked the donor, Nicholas ordered him to keep the gift secret. Today, most people know him as Santa Claus.
The saint is, in fact, the namesake of Pope Nicholas III (circa 1225 –1280). The pope commissioned the rebuilding and decoration of the Sancta Sanctorum as part of his campaign to restore the dilapidated medieval city.
Here in his private chapel, the pope kneels in the left frame of the fresco cycle, prominently flanked by Peter and Paul and presenting a model of the building to the enthroned Christ. As Rome’s ecclesiastical and civic leader, he appears almost oversized, his facial features meticulously portrayed. Amid powerful political threats from kings and emperors, Nicholas took pains to assert the primacy of Rome and its citizens as the true inheritors of the apostolic authority of the ancient Church. Art and architecture thus emerged as a powerful means of communication.
Thus, the generous act of the saint mirrored the pope’s own princely spending. Just as the impoverished girls could maintain their dignity and morality through St. Nicholas’s gift, the artistic and architectural patronage of Pope Nicholas helped restore Rome’s status as a venerable papal city worthy of beautiful art and impressive monuments. While most of his late medieval interventions have been subsequently destroyed by neglect, disaster and later rebuilding, the Sancta Sanctorum stands as a glittering reminder of an important moment of renewal in the long history of the eternal city.
