Cloister gallery

The best preserved and most important Romanesque cloisters in Rome, those of San Giovanni in Laterano and San Paolo fuori le mura, were built in the first half of the thirteenth century by the Vassalletto family. There is evidence that the father and son were the masters who produced the cloister of the Lateran Palace, which was constructed between 1215 and 1232 and some of whose arcades are supported by variously twisted coupled columns. They are frequently covered with delicate mosaics, and at the entrances to the inner courtyard are supported by animals.