The Lateran Church in Rome and the Ark of the Covenant

Weaving in and out of familiar landmarks in the history of the papacy from Urban II to Alexander III, Eivor Andersen Oftestad pursues the presence of the Ark of the Covenant in the Lateran Church in Rome. Her main focus is on the high altar of the basilica itself, but she also turns her attention to the private papal chapel in the patriarchate, known at the opening of the twelfth century by its dedication to St Lawrence but by its end as the Sancta Sanctorum. Contextualising her argument against a wide range of liturgical, exegetical and historical texts, some of northern European and others of Italian authorship, she borrows Charles Stinger’s concept of translatio templi to explain how the Lateran became the successor to the Jerusalem temple, with the Pope as the high priest (C. Stinger, The Renaissance in Rome [1998], p. 226). Developing her argument over seven roughly chronologically

Art · Covenant · Theology · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Byzantine Studies and History · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · History · Philosophy