![]() The obscurity of the chapel today makes it easy to forget that the Sancta Sanctorum was an especially important site in the religious and civic life of Rome in the Middle Ages. It is a view, of course, that Dante strenuously challenged: Nicholas is the very pope Dante places in hell in Inferno 19, the bolgia of the simoniacs. 1 Nicholas's reconstruction included an impressive fresco cycle asserting the papal view of history that was promulgated in a variety of other learned and popular sources, visual and verbal. 1277–1280), a pope who, like Sixtus, was also responsible for an ambitious building project. The Sancta Sanctorum was itself rebuilt following an earthquake in the late thirteenth century by Pope Nicholas III (r. Within is also the chapel known as the Sancta Sanctorum, formerly the private chapel of the pope, and the only other structure from the old Lateran palace incorporated into Sixtus's building project. 1585–1590) in 1586 to house the Scala Sancta, believed to be the steps that Jesus ascended when he was interrogated by Pontius Pilate, and still an important and active pilgrimage site today. The building we see today was constructed by Pope Sixtus V (r. ![]() ![]() Home to the popes from the time of the legalization of Christianity within the Roman Empire under Constantine until they returned to Rome from Avignon at the end of the fourteenth century, the Lateran complex endured fires in the fourteenth century and underwent an almost total reconfiguration in the sixteenth. A visitor to the Lateran Palace today could be excused for underestimating its historical importance, let alone its importance to Dante.
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