We have lately ascended to the roof of this wonder of the world. It resembles a table-land on a mountain, and I was strongly impressed with the notion of having a horse to gallop about it. The two small domes rise from the plane-like churches, and the great dome looks like a mountain. The sacristy of this church is of itself a great edifice, and it is rich beyond all American notions. St. John _in Laterano_ is said to get its name from Plautius Lateranus, whose house stood at the same place. The Lateran Palace joins the church, as the Vatican joins St. Peter’s. The present palace was built by Sixtus V; but Constantine resided here. There is a very ancient baptistery in the group of buildings, in which it is pretended that emperor was baptised; though a man who had made up his mind to be a Christian, would hardly wait to build a church to perform the initiatory ceremony in, I think. The term “councils of the _Lateran_” came from their being held in this palace, as that of the “thunders of the Vatican” from the circumstance that the popes, who issue the bulls, usually live here. St. Peter’s of the Vaticano, as well as the palace, to which it is annexed, if such a term may be used, gets its name from the ancient Roman appellation of the spot. Nero had his circus and gardens here; and it is said that this is the place in which most of the Christians were martyred. The first church was relatively small, though subsequently much enlarged; but it was removed when the present building had got to be advanced. The palace is very ancient, though much changed, for Charlemagne lived in it while at Rome to be crowned, which was more than a thousand years ago. It fell into ruins, however, and was restored by Celestinus III. two centuries later. It has certainly been in its present form more than three centuries, as Raphael and Michael Angelo have left memorials on its walls not to be mistaken. The latter essentially roofed and raised St. Peter’s, and it follows that the present palace is older than the present church. In truth, the latter was erected as an accessory to the former! The Vatican is an immense structure, covering more ground than St. Peter’s itself; though it is a succession of courts and palaces rather than a single edifice. Vasi gives its dimensions at about 1100 by near 800 feet. This includes the courts, but not the gardens. I have somewhere read, that if the buildings of the Vatican were placed in a line, they would reach a mile. The palace and the church are incorporated in one edifice; but, owing to the noble colonnade by which one approaches St. Peter’s, its unity and vastness, particularly its height, and the fact that the Vatican has no great visible façade, the latter is almost lost in the _coup d’œil_ of the other, although it covers most ground of the two, unless the area of the vacancy between the colonnades be thrown in on the side of the church.