Overview
Commissioned by Sixtus V and built to a design by Domenico Fontana between 1586 and 1589, the Lateran Palace replaced the Patriarchate, the papal residence prior to the transfer of the popes to Avignon, decided by Clement V and occurring in 1309. In the new building, planned as the pope's summer residence, the layout of the old complex has been partially recovered. The square building has three matching elevations, three storeys of windows with curved and triangular gables and a central portal with a balcony. It is crowned by a columned roof terrace.
First transformed into a hospital and then into an archive, it was restored under Gregory XVI by Luigi Poletti and converted into a museum. In 1844 it became the Gregoriano Profano Museum, to which the Pius Christian Museum was added ten years later and the Ethnological Missionary Museum in 1926. In 1929, the famous "Lateran Treaty" was signed, as a result of which the building, a pontifical possession, began to enjoy the privilege of extraterritoriality. The museums were transferred to the Vatican, and in 1967, the building became the seat of the Diocese of Rome. Since 1987, it has housed the Vatican Historical Museum, dedicated to papal iconography from the 16th century to the present day, the ceremonial of the papal court and the Papal Military Corps. The exhibition is set up in three galleries and in the rooms of the papal apartment, decorated with frescoes by late Mannerist painters.
