The Scala Santa: Twenty-Eight Steps on Your Knees
Why is it significant?
Go in through the central door and you will see a wide staircase rising ahead of you, and people climbing it very, very slowly. Nobody is walking. Every single person is on their knees, one step at a time, murmuring prayers. These are the Scala Santa, the Holy Stairs.
Key Facts
| Place | The Scala Santa: Twenty-Eight Steps on Your Knees |
|---|---|
| Address | Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano 14, 00185 Roma RM, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.88710, 12.50690 |
| Part of Walk | Rome in Layers: The Quiet Celian Hill, San Clemente & the Lateran |
| Generated | Generated |
Go in through the central door and you will see a wide staircase rising ahead of you, and people climbing it very, very slowly. Nobody is walking. Every single person is on their knees, one step at a time, murmuring prayers.
These are the Scala Santa, the Holy Stairs. Tradition says they are the twenty-eight marble steps of Pontius Pilate's palace in Jerusalem, the steps Jesus climbed on the day of his trial, and that the emperor Constantine's mother, Helena, brought them to Rome in the fourth century. For more than a thousand years they belonged to the old Lateran palace where the popes lived. When Sixtus the Fifth rebuilt the whole area, Domenico Fontana moved them into this building, finished in 1589.
For most of the last three centuries you could not even see the marble. The stairs were cased in walnut wood to protect them from millions of knees. In 2019, after restoration, the wood was removed for about two months, and pilgrims climbed on the bare stone for the first time in almost three hundred years. Look closely at the wooden covering, and you will see small windows where tradition marks drops of Christ's blood.
One pilgrim who climbed them was a young Augustinian monk from Germany, around 1510. His name was Martin Luther. His son later reported that, as he prayed his way up, step after step, he was struck by a question he could not shake off: who knows whether it is true? A few years later he published his ninety-five theses, and Europe split in two.
At the top is the Sancta Sanctorum, the Holy of Holies, once the private chapel of the popes, glittering with thirteenth-century frescoes and mosaics. Its most precious treasure is an ancient icon of Christ said to be not made by human hands. If you do not want to climb on your knees, side staircases let you walk up normally. When you come out, turn left and walk to the gigantic facade crowded with statues across the square.