Basilica of St. Giovanni in Laterano

"Basilica of St. Giovanni in Laterano", the triumph of the cristianity over the paganism. This basilica was the first church to be dedicated to the Holy Reedemer. It was built by Pope Melchiades in 311 AD on land belonging to the Plauzi-Laterani family granted to him by the wife of Emperor Constantine. The palace become the official Papal residence from the 5th century. The populace also called the church "mother and head of all the churches in the world", the dedication to St. Giovanni came later. After being destroyed by fire in the 1308, the basilica was rebuilt in the baroque era. In early imperial times, the territory was chosen by some of the richest and most important Roman patrician families as their place of residence. One of these was the Plauzi Laterani, the owners of a villa surrounded by a great estate which after being incorporated into the state lands under Nero was donated by Fausta, wife of Constantine, to Pope Melchiades, who made it his residence and that of his successors; the district takes its name from the Laterani family. Constantine commissioned the construction of San Giovanni in Laterano in 311-314. It was the first basilica of the Christian world and the cathedral of the city of Rome. Alongside the papal residence, the so-called Patriarchate, which extended with its crenellated towers and its many wings well beyond the perimeter of today's Lateran Palace. Following the 'exile' in Avignon and return of the papacy to Rome in 1377, the Patriarchate slowly declined. The Vatican in fact came to be preferred as the seat of papal power, and from that time onward tarnished the fame enjoyed theretofore by the Lateran complex. The Patriarchate was almost totally demolished during the radical urban renewal work promoted by Sixtus V, which in 1585-1589 involved the opening of the routes linking Santa Maria Maggiore, the Colosseum, and the Via Appia Antica, the placement of the Lateran Obelisk at their crossing, and the construction of the new papal palace, of the Loggia delle Benedizioni, and of the Sancta Scala building.