The next day we visited the neglected Lateran area, which is tourist free despite its historical importance and wealth of sights. One reason for the neglect is its distance from the center, aligned against the ancient Roman wall that surrounds the city and most tourists never know exists. The Lateran is a huge area, originally owned by the Roman Emperor Constantine's wife. As you may remember, Constantine was the emperor who converted to Christianity in the fourth century and made Rome the center of the new religion. What you may have forgotten was that Constantine drowned his wife in her bathtub, then donated the palace to the church, where it built San Giovanni in Lateran. The popes lived next door for a thousand years, and the Lateran was basically the Vatican of the middle ages. When the popes permanently moved to the Vatican and St. Peter's became the popes' church, San Giovanni remained the seat of Rome's cardinal, and hence its cathedral status.



Since the church housed the papacy during its most depraved centuries, there are a lot of good stories to tell. Probably the best was the trial of Pope Formosus, which took place in the cathedral in 897. His successor pope, Stephen VII, hated Formosus and put him on trial as a usurper, despite the fact that he was dead. So Formosus' corpse was dug up, and seated in the church, whereupon Stephen grilled him with questions for two days. Formosus was allowed time to answer the questions, but, being dead, failed to do so, whereupon he was declared a fraud. Stephen then cut off the three fingers Formosus used for papal blessings, then had the rest of the corpse thrown in the river. I'm not sure, but I believe neither of these popes were subsequently canonized.