If you want to walk inside a very old building and enjoy seeing the collection of religious antiquities of the Pontificate then you must visit the Lateran Palace. This palace was built during the Roman Empire and today houses the Pontifical Museum of Christian Antiquities.
Constantine the Great handed this building over to the Pope and thus made it a papal residence for the next thousand years. It suffered a great fire and had to be restored and beautified during the XNUMXth century and it was in those years that this residence became a true palace. The view of this part of Rome was at that time very different from today: the square in front and which today houses the Lateran obelisk had a palace and a tower and between that palace and the basilica was the statue of Marco Aurelio and his horse.
In this Lateran Palace many councils took place and many popes lived. The windows facing the square are in fact those of the papal apartments. When the papal see was withdrawn to Avignon the palace suffered some deterioration and later, in 1307 and in 1361 it suffered two great fires from which it could never fully recover. Finally, the popes chose to settle in a couple of basilicas before finally moving to Vatican City, when they returned to Rome from Avignon. Later the palace shrunk a bit to its present size.