Saint John's Tower (Vatican City) Saint John's Tower (Vatican City) Saint John's Tower () is a round structure located on a hilltop in the westernmost tip of Vatican City, near Vatican Radio and overlooking the Vatican Gardens. The Medieval tower is located along an ancient wall built by Pope Nicholas III, but it fell into disuse at the beginning of the 16th century. It was rebuilt by Pope John XXIII in the early 1960s. In modern times, the Tower houses papal apartments used by popes when maintenance work is being done on the Apostolic Palace and also is reserved for illustrious guests of the Pontiffs.
Prophecy of the Popes the Roman". In the "Lignum Vitae", the line "In persecutione extrema S.R.E. sedebit." forms a separate sentence and paragraph of its own. While often read as part of the "Peter the Roman" prophecy, other interpreters view it as a separate, incomplete sentence explicitly referring to one or more popes between "the glory of the olive" and "Peter the Roman". The list can be divided into two groups; one of the popes and antipopes who reigned prior to the appearance of the prophecies c. 1590, for whom the connection between the motto and the pope is consistently clear. The other is