THE ALTERATIONS OF THE LATERAN CHURCH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 195, 22 December 1876, Page 8

THE ALTERATIONS OF THE LATERAN CHURCH.

No one has ever been to Rome without gazing in admiration upon the beauty of the grand mosaic which covers the vault, the upper portion of the wall and lines the windows of the apse of the great Basilica of St. John Lateran. In a few days that mosaic will be lying on the ground, either in a quantity of numbered pieces or a more or less irreparable mass of rubbish, according as the process of detaching it from the wall may be successful or not. And who can tell ? This operation carried out, the apse itself is to be levelled with the ground, in order that the Basilican plan may be converted into that of a Latin cross, by the construction of the upper limb, which the clerical papers describe as having been hitherto wanting, as being required to give sufficient space for the proper celebration of religious ceremonies, and necessary to the decorum of the Mater cv Caput of all the churches. From many points of view the mosaic is .one cf the most important in Rome. It forms the only connecting link between the works of earlier date and those in the tribunes of Sta. Maria. Maggiore, St. Clemente, and Sta. Maria, in Trastevere, while at the same time it affords example of different periods of workmanship harmoniously blended together. In the upper third is the miraculous head of the Saviour on a deep blue ground-work, surrounded by angels, and this part is believed to date from the time of Leo I. It is probable that the lower portion was destroyed during one of the fires, and replaced with that we now see, representing the Virgin, St Peter, St Paul, Sb John the Baptist, Sb John the Evangelist, and St Andrew, standing three on each side of the great jewelled crois. Again it was injured andreplaced by Jacob Torriti, the master who wrought that in the apse of Sta. Maria Maggiore, and who introduced the smaller figures of St Francis, St Anthony, and Pope Nicholas IV., placing at the same time his own name in the left hand corner. Then 'between the windows, are nine grand Prophets, the work of another Jacobus, in all probability the monk who in 1825 made the mosaic in the tribune adjoining the Baptistery of St Giovanni at-Florence. But even supposing that the mosaic should pass with comparative safety through the imminent danger of utter destruction to which it is about to be subjected, and finally reappear in no very different state on the niche to be built at the head of the Latin cross, yet the " improvements " to be made will entirely destroy all that remains of the Basilican character of the edifice. Although in Panciroli's days it was in great part no longer the same that had been erected by Constantine, it retained its original form, and the nave was divided from the double ailes on each side by lines of columns. These were buried in pairs within the clumsy pilasters substituted in 1650 by Bonimino. Then Clement XII., nearly a century later, continued the " improvements," and the old front, with its portico and frescoes by Giotto, gave place to the actual facade, to what was considered the better taste of the period. But the apse, trith its grand mosaic remained, and the Basilican plan was in the main preserved' until now, when Pius IX. has resolved to complete the transformation by giving the church the "better" form of a Latin cross, with big statues in two great pilasters on each side of the upper limb, like those in the nave. Pius IX. has undertaken to bear the expense of this, which will amount to about 5,000,000 francs.