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Da Villa Celimontana a San Giovanni in Laterano
Villa Celimontana, starting point of our itinerary, is located on the hill of the Celio and can be reached with the B line of the metro.
The Villa, nowadays public park, belonged around the half of the 16th century to the Mattei Family.
Nowadays, next to the entrance door, we still find the church of Santa Maria in Domnica and the Fountain of the Navicella while on the left of the small entrance road is located an antique obelisk, one of the most important piece under the historic point of view of the villa.
From the one that one time was the Antique Villa, nowadays headquarter of the Italian Geographic Society, one gets out Via di Navicella and turns left taking Via Amba Aradam, to then arrive to San Giovanni in Laterano one of the most important basilica of Rome after Saint Peter.
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The 4 basilicas
Since the year 1300, on the will of Pope Bonifacio VIII, started the celebration of the "Jubilee" in Rome, also called "Saint Year".
During this period it is possible to benefit from the plenary forgivingness by visiting at least one of the 4 big Roman basilicas.
Initially the Jubilee was taking place once every 100 years. Nowadays it takes place every 25 years. In the same way, initially, to benefit from the plenary indulgence, it was necessary to visit all the four big basilicas, and that is: St. John in Lateran, the mother of all the churches of the world, St. Mary Major, built in 352 after the apparition of the Madonna, the Basilica of San Pietro, the biggest church of Christianity, and San Paolo out of the walls, consecrated in 324 and unfortunately destroyed by the fire in 1823, to be then rebuilt on the same basement and consecrated in 1854 by Pope Pio IX.
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