Nevertheless, as properties of the Holy See, the archbasilica and its adjoining edifices enjoy an extraterritorial status from Italy, pursuant to the terms of the Lateran Treaty of 1929.

[a] Dedicated to the Christ, in honor of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, the place name, Laterano (Lateran) comes from an ancient Roman family (gens), whose palace (domus) grounds occupied the site; the adjacent Lateran Palace was the primary residence of the pope until the Middle Ages.

The president of the French Republic, currently Emmanuel Macron, is ex officio the "First and Only Honorary Canon" of the archbasilica, a title that the heads of state of France have possessed since King Henry IV.

The large Latin inscription on the façade reads: Clemens XII Pont Max Anno V Christo Salvatori In Hon SS Ioan Bapt et Evang.

The archbasilica's Latin name is Archibasilica Sanctissimi Salvatoris ac Sancti Ioannis Baptistae et Ioannis Evangelistae ad Lateranum,[6] which in English is the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior and Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist at the Lateran, and in Italian Arcibasilica [Papale] del Santissimo Salvatore e Santi Giovanni Battista ed Evangelista in Laterano.

[4] The archbasilica stands over the remains of the Castra Nova equitum singularium, the "New Fort of the Roman imperial cavalry bodyguards".

The Lateran Palace fell into the hands of the Emperor when Constantine the Great married his second wife Fausta, sister of Maxentius.

In the twelfth century the canons of the Lateran claimed that the high altar housed the Ark of the Covenant and several holy objects from Jerusalem.

Pope Sergius III dedicated them in honor of Saint John the Baptist in the 10th century, occasioned by the newly consecrated baptistry of the archbasilica.

When the papacy returned from Avignon and the pope again resided in Rome, the archbasilica and the Lateran Palace were deemed inadequate considering their accumulated damage.

Eventually, the Palace of the Vatican was built adjacent to the Basilica of Saint Peter, which existed since the time of Emperor Constantine I, and the popes began to reside there.

The twelve niches created by his architectural scheme were eventually filled in 1718 with statues of the Apostles, sculpted by the most prominent Roman Rococo sculptors.

It reads in Latin: Clemens XII Pont Max Anno V Christo Salvatori In Hon SS Ioan Bapt et Evang; this highly abbreviated inscription is expanded thus: Clemens XII, Pont[ifex] Max[imus], [in] Anno V, [dedicavit hoc aedificium] Christo Salvatori, in hon[orem] [sanctorum] Ioan[is] Bapt[tistae] et Evang[elistae].

During the Second World War, the Lateran and its related buildings were used under Pope Pius XII as a safe haven from the Nazis and Italian Fascists for numbers of Jews and other refugees.

The Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul and the sixty orphan refugees they cared for were ordered to leave their convent on the Via Carlo Emanuele.

The Sisters of Maria Bambina, who staffed the kitchen at the Pontifical Major Roman Seminary at the Lateran offered a wing of their convent.

[15] Vincenzo Fagiolo and Pietro Palazzini, vice-rector of the seminary, were recognized by Yad Vashem for their efforts to assist Jews.

In 897, it was almost totally destroyed by an earthquake: ab altari usque ad portas cecidit ("it collapsed from the altar to the doors").

It burned once more in 1360, and was rebuilt by Pope Urban V. Through vicissitudes the archbasilica retained its ancient form, being divided by rows of columns into aisles, and having in front a peristyle surrounded by colonnades with a fountain in the middle, the conventional Late Antique format that was also followed by the old Saint Peter's Basilica.

The porticoes were frescoed, probably not earlier than the 12th century, commemorating the Roman fleet under Vespasian, the taking of Jerusalem, the Baptism of Emperor Constantine I and his "Donation" of the Papal States to the Catholic Church.

In one of the rebuildings, probably that which was carried out by Pope Clement V, a transverse nave was introduced, imitated no doubt from the one which had been added, long before this, to the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls.

It owes its unsavory name to the anthem sung at previous Papal coronations, "De stercore erigens pauperem" ("lifting up the poor out of the dunghill", from Psalm 112).

Galilei provided it, without abandoning the range of identical arch-headed openings, by extending the central window by flanking columns that support the arch, in the familiar Serlian motif.

When in 1702 Pope Clement XI and Benedetto Cardinal Pamphili, archpriests of the archbasilica, announced their grand scheme for twelve larger-than-life sculptures of the Apostles (Judas Iscariot replaced by Saint Paul, instead of Saint Matthias) to fill the niches, the commission was opened to all the premier sculptors of late Baroque Rome.

It was founded by Pope Sixtus III, perhaps on an earlier structure, for a legend arose that Emperor Constantine I was baptized there and enriched the edifice.

They supposedly form the staircase which once led to the praetorium of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem and which, therefore, were sanctified by the footsteps of Jesus Christ during His Passion.

Their translation from Jerusalem to the Lateran Palace in the 4th century is credited to Saint Empress Helena, the mother of the then-Emperor Constantine I.

In 1589, Pope Sixtus V relocated the steps to their present location in front of the ancient palatine chapel named the Sancta Sanctorum.