The Lateran Obelisk & the Baptistery of Constantine
Why is it significant?
Stand in the square and tip your head back as far as it will go. The red granite needle in front of you is the tallest ancient Egyptian obelisk still standing anywhere on earth, over thirty metres of stone before you even count the pedestal. It is around three and a half thousand years old.
Key Facts
| Place | The Lateran Obelisk & the Baptistery of Constantine |
|---|---|
| Address | Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano, 00184 Roma RM, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.88620, 12.50430 |
| Part of Walk | Rome in Layers: The Quiet Celian Hill, San Clemente & the Lateran |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand in the square and tip your head back as far as it will go. The red granite needle in front of you is the tallest ancient Egyptian obelisk still standing anywhere on earth, over thirty metres of stone before you even count the pedestal. It is around three and a half thousand years old.
It was raised at Karnak, in Thebes, for the pharaoh Thutmose the Third, and finished by his grandson. Constantine wanted it for his new city on the Bosphorus, but it was his son, Constantius the Second, who finally shipped it to Rome in 357 and set it up in the middle of the Circus Maximus. When the empire fell, it toppled and broke into three pieces and vanished into the mud. In 1587 it was dug up, and the next year Domenico Fontana repaired it and raised it here for Pope Sixtus the Fifth, crowned with a cross.
Now turn to the low, eight-sided brick building beside the basilica. This is the Lateran Baptistery. Constantine built the first one here, and in the fifth century Pope Sixtus the Third rebuilt it with this octagonal plan. Eight sides, for the eighth day, the day of resurrection. From here the shape spread across the Christian world, to Ravenna, Florence and far beyond.
Medieval Romans believed that Constantine himself had been baptised in this font. He was not. He was baptised on his deathbed, far away near Constantinople, in 337. But a good legend is hard to kill. Inside, ask to see the bronze doors of the chapel of Saint John the Baptist. The story goes that if you open them slowly, the old metal hinges sing, a long low note like an organ.
Every Easter for centuries, adult converts walked down into the font here and came up as Christians. This octagon is where Rome's Christianity was, quite literally, born again. Now cross the square to the long white building on its far side, with one door and many people waiting in front of it.