"On y voit Boniface annonçant au peuple le jubilé. Le portrait du pape doit être ressemblant. J'ai reconnu dans cette physiognomie, où il y a plus de finesse que de force, la statue que j'avais vue couchée sur le tombeau de ce pape, dans les souterrains du Vatican."—Ampère, Voyage Dantesque.
Opening from this aisle are several chapels. The second is that of the newly established and rich family of Torlonia, which contains a marble Pietà, by Tenerani, and some handsome modern monuments. The third is that of the Massimi (designed by Giacomo della Porta), which has, as an altar-piece, the Crucifixion by Sermoneta. Beyond this, in the right aisle, are several remarkable tombs of cardinals, among which is the tomb of Cardinal Guissano, who died in 1287. The painters Cav. d'Arpino and Andrea Sacchi are buried in this church.
Entered from the last chapel in the left aisle (by a door which the sacristan will open) is the beautiful twelfth century Cloister of the Monastery, surrounded by low arches supported on exquisite inlaid and twisted columns, above which is a lovely frieze of coloured marbles. The court thus enclosed is a garden of roses; in the centre is a well (adorned with crosses) of the tenth century, called the "Well of the Woman of Samaria." In the cloister is a collection of architectural and traditional relics, including a beautiful old white marble throne, inlaid with mosaics, a candelabrum resting on a lion, and several other exquisitely wrought details from the old basilica; also a porphyry slab upon which the soldiers are said to have cast lots for the seamless robe; columns which were rent by the earthquake of the Crucifixion; a slab, resting on pillars, shown as a measure of the height of Our Saviour,[284] and a smaller slab, also on pillars, of which it is said that it was once an altar, at which the officiating priest doubted of the Real Presence, when the wafer fell from his hand through the stone, leaving a round hole which still remains.
Five General Councils have been held at the Lateran, viz.:—
I.—March 19, 1123, under Calixtus II., with regard to the Investiture.
II.—April 18, 1139, under Innocent II., to condemn the doctrines of Arnold of Brescia and Peter de Bruys, and to oppose the anti-pope Anacletus II.
III.—March 5, 1179, under Alexander III., to condemn the doctrines of Waldenses and Albigenses, and to end the schism caused by Frederick Barbarossa.
IV.—Nov. 11, 1215, at which 400 bishops assembled under Innocent III., to condemn the Albigenses, and the heresies of the Abbot Joachim.
V.—May 3, 1512, under Julius II. and Leo X., at which the Pragmatic Sanction was abolished, and a Concordat concluded between the Pope and Francis I. for the destruction of the liberties of the Gallican Church.
It is in the basilica of the Lateran that the Church places the first meeting between St. Francis and St Dominic.