The Sancta Sanctorum is a chapel at the top of the Scala Santa in Rome, dedicated to Saint Lawrence. It served as the Pope's private oratory until the Renaissance. Pope Sixtus V's complex of 1586, the Palace and the Holy Steps, later took it in. It is the only building from the old Lateran Palace that was not destroyed during its reconstruction.
The chapel is small and rectangular. Under the altar, a cypress reliquary placed by Leo III is said to hold bones of at least thirteen saints. A cloisonné cross was commissioned by Paschal I. The chapel also holds the Acheiropoieta icon of Christ Pantocrator, known as the Uronica or Veronica.
The floor is opus sectile dated to 1278, in the Cosmati style. The first mention in the Liber Pontificalis dates to the reign of Stephen III, between 768 and 772.
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