Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano

Awesome is a word that often rises on entering some of these churches - and this is one of those.  It was vast and complex.  And seems to have a less than pure history.  It is the strange contradiction that some many of these magnificent structures were the result of corrupt events.

This is a statue of St Bartholomew who is said to have been flayed alive.  The sculptural rending of his flesh here is amazing.