The Basilica of Saint Mary Major — Santa Maria Maggiore — is the largest of the churches in Rome dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and one of the four major basilicas of Christendom, alongside Saint Peter's, Saint John Lateran and Saint Paul Outside the Walls. Raised on the summit of the Esquiline Hill, it is the only one of Rome's great basilicas to have preserved, beneath its Baroque splendour, the framework and decoration of Christian antiquity.
Its foundation, as we see it today — work begun under Celestine I (422-432), completed and consecrated by Pope Sixtus III (432-440), traditional date of 5 August 434 — responds to a momentous event: the Council of Ephesus (431), which solemnly proclaimed that Mary is truly Mother of God, Theotokos. The basilica was raised to celebrate this dogma in stone — making it, according to a widely received tradition, the first great basilica in the West placed under the patronage of the Virgin, a primacy to be understood in the monumental sense: Roman tituli dedicated to Mary claim greater antiquity in their primitive phase, notably that of Trastevere, and the very site on the Esquiline already bore the Liberian basilica.[5] Traditionally dated to 5 August, c. 434[6], it preserves from that period what appears to be the first attested appearance of Mary in court dress in monumental art.[7]
A famous legend, fixed in the Middle Ages, traces the origin of the sanctuary to a miracle of snow falling in the very heart of the Roman summer to outline the plan of the church. Hence its name of Saint Mary of the Snows and its feast of 5 August. The basilica houses two treasures of rare spiritual density: the icon of the Salus Populi Romani, "salvation of the Roman people", whose wooden support is radiocarbon-dated between the late 9th and the early 11th century[8] and which the popes have honoured with their ex-votos for centuries[9], and the relics of the Crib of Bethlehem, which earned it the nickname Santa Maria ad Praesepe, "Saint Mary of the Crib".
Rebuilt and magnified by the centuries — Renaissance gilded ceiling, mosaic of the Coronation of the Virgin, monumental Baroque chapels, façade by Ferdinando Fuga — it has become the great Marian sanctuary of the popes. There, near the icon he venerated before and after every journey, Pope Francis wished to rest: buried on 26 April 2025, he is the first pope laid to rest outside the Vatican in more than a century.
Why is Saint Mary Major "major"?
One of the four major basilicas of Rome
In the hierarchy of Catholic sanctuaries, only four churches bear the title of major basilica — a rank shared by no other building in the world: Saint John Lateran, Saint Peter's in the Vatican, Saint Paul Outside the Walls and Saint Mary Major.[10] They are the four great stages of the Roman pilgrimage, endowed with a Holy Door opened during jubilees[11] and a reserved papal altar.[12]
Saint Mary Major is the only one of these four to have kept its Early Christian plan: a central nave lined with ancient columns, two side aisles, an apse. Where Saint Peter's and Saint Paul's were rebuilt from the ground up, and where Saint John Lateran — though of Constantinian origin — was profoundly remodelled in the modern era, the Liberiana has crossed sixteen centuries without losing the silhouette of Sixtus III's basilica.[13]
The greatest Marian church in Rome
The adjective "major" — maggiore — does not refer to the absolute size of the building, but to its pre-eminence among all the Roman churches dedicated to the Virgin.[14] Rome counts dozens of Marian sanctuaries; the one on the Esquiline is their head and their model, the oldest and most venerable. It is Mary's great church, the one towards which all the others converge.
The nave is punctuated by forty-two ancient columns originally — thirty-eight in Hymettus marble and four in grey granite —, taken from ancient monuments according to the usage of the first basilicas; forty survive (thirty-six of marble and four of granite).[15] This forest of monolithic columns, crowned by a continuous entablature, gives the interior a wholly classical majesty, inherited directly from Roman architecture.
The "Liberian" basilica
Before being called Saint Mary Major, the sanctuary was known as the Liberian basilica — Basilica Liberiana — after Pope Liberius (352-366), to whom tradition attributes its first foundation.[16] This ancient name recalls that, well before the building of Sixtus III, a church already stood on the Esquiline. The basilica thus accumulates titles, each preserving the memory of a layer of its history: Liberian after its supposed founder, of the Snows after its legend, of the Crib after its relics, and Major after its dignity.
The miracle of the snow: the founding legend
The dream of 5 August and the patrician John
The most famous tradition attached to the basilica is that of the miracle of the snow. Under the pontificate of Liberius, a wealthy Roman patrician named John and his wife, left childless, are said to have resolved to bequeath their fortune to the Virgin Mary, praying to her to show them how to use it.[17] In the night of 4 to 5 August, the Mother of God is said to have appeared in a dream to the couple — and, it is said, to Pope Liberius himself — asking them to build a church on the spot where, in the morning, they would find the ground covered with snow.
In the heart of the Roman summer, a layer of snow is said to have whitened the summit of the Esquiline. The pope went there in procession and traced with a staff, in the snow, the perimeter of the future basilica, which John immediately had built at his own expense.[18] The year traditionally put forward is 358, under the pontificate of Liberius, although the sources vary.
Our Lady of the Snows and the feast of 5 August
From this account comes the title of Our Lady of the Snows — Santa Maria ad Nives — and the feast of the Dedication of Saint Mary Major: since the revision of the General Roman Calendar in 1969, it ranks there as an optional memorial celebrated every 5 August — not as a feast of obligation.[19] Still today, on that day, a shower of white rose petals falls from the vault of the Pauline Chapel during the celebration, recalling the miraculous snow — one of the most beloved liturgical spectacles in Rome.[20]
History and legend: what criticism says
The historian must distinguish two levels here. The account of the miracle of the snow was fixed in writing only in the 13th century, several centuries after the supposed events: it belongs to pious tradition rather than documented chronicle.[21] The basilica we admire, on the other hand, is a solidly established historical fact: it is the work of Pope Sixtus III, around 432-440, nearly a century after the time of Liberius.
Should the legend therefore be rejected? No more than it should be imposed as a dogma. The Church asks no one to believe in the miracle of the snow: it may be read as a symbolic narrative expressing a profound truth — that this place was, from the beginning, willed and appointed to honour Mary. An earlier church may have existed under Liberius; the monumental sanctuary, for its part, was born of the conciliar faith of Ephesus. The summer snow, a sign of a purity come down from above in the hottest of seasons, remains a beautiful image of the Immaculate — without wounding historical rigour.
Sixtus III and the Council of Ephesus: the first great church of the Virgin
The Council of Ephesus (431) and the dogma of the Theotokos
To understand Saint Mary Major, one must go back to the third ecumenical council, gathered at Ephesus in 431. Against Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who refused to call Mary "Mother of God" and preferred "Mother of Christ", the council proclaimed that Mary is truly Theotokos, "she who gives birth to God", because the one she conceived is, from the first instant, the Word of God made man in a single person.[22] This was not first of all an honour paid to Mary: it was the affirmation that Jesus is truly God, and that Mary is truly Mother of God.
The Catechism sums up this doctrine in one limpid sentence:
"Called in the Gospels 'the mother of Jesus' (Jn 2, 1 ; 19, 25 ; cf. Mt 13, 55), Mary is acclaimed, under the prompting of the Spirit, even before the birth of her son, as 'the mother of my Lord' (Lc 1, 43). For the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit and who has truly become her Son according to the flesh is none other than the eternal Son of the Father, the second Person of the Holy Trinity. The Church confesses that Mary is truly Mother of God (Theotokos) (cf. DS 251)." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 495[23]
A church to proclaim Mary Mother of God
At Rome, the definition of Ephesus was received with rejoicing. Pope Sixtus III, who had just acceded to the See of Peter in 432, wished to translate this doctrinal triumph into stone and mosaic.[24] He had the church on the Esquiline rebuilt and magnified to make it the monument to the divine maternity of Mary — the first great basilica in the West dedicated to the Virgin, the Roman echo of the Eastern council.
The triumphal arch still bears the dedicatory inscription that Sixtus III had engraved there, which says everything about his humility as a pastor:
"Sixtus, bishop, to the people of God." (XYSTUS EPISCOPUS PLEBI DEI) — Inscription of Sixtus III on the triumphal arch of Saint Mary Major[25]
The traditional dedication of 5 August 434
Whose origins go back to the reign of Celestine I (422-432)[26], the building of the basilica was completed under Sixtus III, to whom tradition attributes its dedication, on a 5 August c. 434.[27] This August date naturally joined the feast of the miraculous snow, merging into a single celebration the legendary origin and the historical dedication of the sanctuary. It is this double anniversary that the Church celebrates today on 5 August.
The 5th-century Early Christian mosaics
The nave: the story of the Old Testament
The mosaic decoration of Sixtus III is one of the most precious legacies of Early Christian art. Along the nave runs a cycle of forty-two original panels illustrating the great narratives of the Old Testament: the story of Abraham, of Jacob, of Moses and of Joshua, the crossing of the Red Sea, the conquest of the Promised Land — twenty-seven survive in mosaic, nine others having been redone in fresco in 1593, and six having been destroyed when the Sistine and Pauline chapels were pierced through.[28] These scenes, treated with the narrative vividness and sense of relief of late Roman art, are among the oldest figurative biblical mosaics preserved in a church.
The triumphal arch: the infancy of Christ and Mary as empress
Above the altar, the triumphal arch unfolds a programme devoted entirely to the infancy of Christ: the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation in the Temple, the Flight into Egypt. The theological novelty bursts forth: Mary is depicted there in majesty, dressed in court dress, adorned with gold and precious stones, enthroned like a sovereign.[29] Art places itself at the service of the dogma of Ephesus: she who bore God receives the honours of a queen. According to the art historian J. Osborne, this is apparently the first time that Mary appears thus dressed in imperial court dress in monumental art — the rank, as Beat Brenk has shown, of a femina clarissima rather than of an empress.[30]
Treasures and metamorphoses through the centuries
The coffered ceiling and the gold of the Americas
The coffered ceiling covering the nave is one of the masterpieces of the Roman Renaissance. Attributed to Giuliano da Sangallo at the end of the 15th century for Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia — the future Pope Alexander VI — it is said to have been gilded with the first gold to come from the Americas, offered by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to the Spanish pope.[31] This gold from the New World, laid upon the coffers of a Roman basilica, strikingly links the discovery of 1492 to the oldest Marian church in the West. On Spain's connection with this see, see also the episode of the Borgia popes.
Beneath the feet of the faithful stretches the medieval Cosmatesque pavement, a marquetry of polychrome marbles in discs and interlacing, laid under Pope Eugene III (1145-1153).[32]
The Coronation of the Virgin by Jacopo Torriti
The apse is adorned with a dazzling mosaic: the Coronation of the Virgin, executed in the 1290s and signed in 1296 by the Franciscan mosaicist Jacopo Torriti at the initiative of Pope Nicholas IV.[33] At the centre of a great medallion studded with stars, Christ and his Mother sit enthroned side by side, the Son placing the crown on Mary's head, while acanthus scrolls, birds and figures of saints unfold against a gold ground. It is one of the finest medieval apses in Rome, heir to the great Early Christian compositions and the summit of Roman mosaic art on the threshold of the 14th century.
The bell tower, the tallest in Rome
On the flank of the basilica rises a Romanesque brick campanile, rebuilt between 1370 and 1378 under the pontificate of Gregory XI (1370-1378) — the pope who brought the Avignon papacy back to Rome on 17 January 1377 —, replacing the bell tower damaged by the earthquake of 1348.[34] At seventy-five metres, it is the tallest bell tower in Rome. Its storeys pierced with paired openings and adorned with coloured ceramics dominate the whole city from the Esquiline; visible from afar, it signals the Marian sanctuary like a beacon planted in the heart of the city.
The façade by Ferdinando Fuga
The present façade, which closes the square, is the work of the architect Ferdinando Fuga, completed between 1741 and 1743 under Pope Benedict XIV.[35] Fuga was able to solve a delicate problem: modernising the entrance without destroying the medieval mosaic of the loggia. He wrapped the old façade in a portico with arcades surmounted by a loggia, keeping sheltered the mosaics of Filippo Rusuti (about 1300) which recount precisely the legend of the miracle of the snow.[36] Behind the elegant Baroque screen, the pilgrim thus rediscovers the medieval image of the miraculous night.
The Salus Populi Romani: the icon watching over Rome
An image attributed to Saint Luke
The most beloved of the basilica's treasures is the icon of the Salus Populi Romani — the "salvation of the Roman people". Painted on a cedar panel about 117 by 79 centimetres, it represents the Virgin half-length bearing the Child, in the Byzantine type of the Hodegetria, "she who shows the way".[37] Tradition attributes it to Saint Luke the Evangelist, presented as the first painter of the Virgin; its dating remains debated: the wooden support is radiocarbon-dated between the late 9th century and the early 11th, while the painting itself is placed by the direction of the Vatican Museums closer to the 11th-13th centuries.[38]
Gregory the Great, the plague and the devotion of the popes
The icon has been interwoven with the history of Rome since the early Middle Ages. According to the account of Cardinal Baronius, Pope Saint Gregory the Great (590-604) is said to have carried it in procession through the city to implore the end of an epidemic of plague.[39] Century after century, the popes offered it crowns and jewels as ex-votos: Clement VIII, Gregory XVI — who crowned it canonically in 1838 —, Pius XII during the Marian Year of 1954.[40] The image has become the maternal protectress of the City, invoked in every public distress.
The Pauline Chapel of Paul V
To house the icon fittingly, Pope Paul V Borghese had built, between 1605 and 1616, the sumptuous Pauline Chapel — also called Borghese — one of the jewels of Roman Baroque, all inlaid with precious marbles and lapis lazuli.[41] The Salus Populi Romani sits enthroned there above the altar, surrounded by angels of gilded bronze. It is there that generations of popes have knelt, and it is close by that Pope Francis now rests.
Relics of the Crib: "Saint Mary of the Crib"
The boards of the manger of Bethlehem
The basilica preserves a distinguished relic: five pieces of sycamore wood venerated as the remains of the manger in which the Infant Jesus was laid at Bethlehem. Tradition reports that they were brought to Rome under Pope Theodore I (642-649), a native of Jerusalem, when the City welcomed, fleeing the invasions, some of the relics of the Holy Land — but how or when the relic actually arrived here is unknown.[42] The name of Santa Maria ad Praesepe, "Saint Mary of the Crib", is in any case older than this contribution: it already appears, in the 6th century, in the deed of donation of Flavia Xantippa.[43]
The five pieces are today enshrined in the Sacra Culla, a cradle-shaped crystal reliquary designed by Giuseppe Valadier (1802), displayed in the crypt of the Nativity — the Confessio laid out by Vespignani in 1861-1864 at the request of Pius IX —, where a statue by Ignazio Jacometti (1883) depicts Pius IX kneeling in adoration.[44]
Christmas at Saint Mary Major
Because it sheltered the relic of the Crib, the basilica very early became the Roman sanctuary of the Nativity: the midnight Mass of Christmas had its traditional station there, ad Praesepe — the dawn Mass falling, for its part, to Saint Anastasia —, and the popes celebrated the vigil of the Nativity there until the 19th century.[45] This link between Saint Mary Major and Christmas makes it, more than any other, the church of the Incarnation: the place where the Christian West came, for centuries, to adore God made a little child, laid in a manger by her whom Ephesus had just proclaimed Mother of God.
Pope Francis at Saint Mary Major
A lifelong devotion to the Salus
Of all the sanctuaries in Rome, Saint Mary Major was the one Pope Francis cherished most. From the day after his election, in March 2013, he went there to pray before the Salus Populi Romani; and he took the habit of coming there to recollect himself before and after each of his apostolic journeys, entrusting every mission to the protection of the Virgin.[46] According to the commemorative inscription placed in the basilica for the first anniversary, he went there one hundred and twenty-six times in the course of his pontificate.[47]
The "Franciscus" tomb (2025)
In his testament, Francis had asked to rest not in the Vatican, but at Saint Mary Major, "near the Virgin".[48] Having died on 21 April 2025, he was buried there on 26 April 2025, becoming the first pope buried outside the Vatican since Leo XIII in 1903.[49] His tomb stands in the side nave, between the Pauline Chapel — that of the Salus Populi Romani — and the Sforza Chapel, near the altar of Saint Francis of Assisi.[50]
Faithful to his simplicity, the tomb bears only a single word: "Franciscus". The slab is cut from a marble of Liguria, in homage to the land of his Italian forebears; above, in silvered metal, a reproduction of the pectoral cross he wore, adorned with the Good Shepherd.[51] No effigy, no title, no coat of arms: the pope who preached a poor Church rests beneath a bare stone, in the shadow of the icon he loved all his life.
Thus the oldest Marian church in the West, born of the faith of Ephesus in the Mother of God, became, sixteen centuries later, the last refuge of a successor of Peter come to entrust himself one final time to her whom it honours.
Further reading
- The Council of Ephesus (431) — the council that proclaimed Mary Mother of God and inspired the foundation of the basilica.
- Mary, Mother of God (Theotokos) — the Marian dogma that Saint Mary Major celebrates in stone.
- The Basilica of Saint John Lateran — the pope's cathedral, "mother of all churches", the other great sanctuary founded at the dawn of the free Church.
- The Old Basilica of Saint Peter — the Constantinian basilica over the tomb of the apostle Peter.
- The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854) — the Church's other great deepening of Marian faith.
Notes and References
EWTN Vatican, "Who are the many popes not buried in the Vatican?" (April 2025): the basilica houses the tombs of Honorius III, Nicholas IV, Saint Pius V, Sixtus V, Paul V, Clement VIII and Clement IX; National Catholic Register / CNA, "Six popes are buried at St. Mary Major" (December 2023): the same six popes before Francis. On Honorius III, whose tomb no longer survives, see note honorius-tombeau.
1Treccani, Enciclopedia dei Papi (2000), "Onorio III" (S. Carocci, M. Vendittelli): died on 18 March 1227, funeral the next day, buried in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in a "concha porfyretica", his tomb becoming an object of public devotion; Turismo Roma (official Rome tourist office), "The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore" page (https://www.turismoroma.it/en/places/basilica-santa-maria-maggiore): Honorius III (1216-1227) among the popes buried in the basilica. The funerary monument is attested by Vasari, Lives of the Painters, "Arnolfo di Lapo": tomb of Honorius III at Saint Mary Major built by Arnolfo, with the portrait of the pope taken from life. No monument of Honorius III survives today in the basilica: modern presentations of its visible tombs (official site of the basilica, Turismo Roma) show none.
2Gian Lorenzo Bernini (b. 1598), died on 28 November 1680, buried with his parents in the family vault of Saint Mary Major; New York Review of Books (June 2015), "Bernini: He Had the Touch": the family rests in the basilica, facing the family house on the Esquiline.
3Lateran Treaties (1929): the basilica, on Italian territory, is the property of the Holy See and enjoys extraterritorial status — cf. list of the extraterritorial properties of the Holy See ("Extraterritorial properties of the Holy See": Saint John Lateran, Saint Mary Major, Saint Paul Outside the Walls, Castel Gandolfo…), status in force to this day.
4mariedenazareth.com, "Éphèse : la basilique du concile (431)" and "Concile d'Éphèse (431) — Marie, Mère de Dieu, Theotokos": Sixtus III, successor of Peter from 432 to 440, dedicated to the Virgin the church later called Saint Mary Major, probably the first church in the West placed under the patronage of the Virgin, in the wake of the definition of the divine maternity of Mary (Theotokos) at the Council of Ephesus in 431. Nuance: sacred-destinations.com, "Santa Maria in Trastevere": titulus Callisti founded under Callixtus I (217-222), rebuilt about 350 under Julius I (337-352), then rededicated to the Virgin under Celestine I — the primacy of Saint Mary Major is therefore that of the first great monumental Marian basilica, not of the first Roman Marian place of worship; the very site on the Esquiline already bore the Liberian basilica of Liberius (see note liberienne).
5 22 24Liber Pontificalis, Life of Sixtus III: Sixtus III built the basilica of Saint Mary near the market of Livia; mosaics of the nave and triumphal arch dated to the pontificate of Sixtus III (432-440) — official site of the basilica, "Interni" page; Victor Saxer, Sainte-Marie-Majeure. Une basilique de Rome dans l'histoire de la ville et de son Église (Ve–XIIIe siècle), École française de Rome, 2001: the year 434 is retained only as a probable dating, not as a certain date.
6 27J. Osborne, "The Cult of Maria Regina in Early Medieval Rome", Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia, vol. 21, no. 7 N.S. (2008), p. 96: on the triumphal arch of Saint Mary Major, Mary appears "apparently for the first time dressed in imperial court costume" — the rank, as B. Brenk (Die frühchristlichen Mosaiken in S. Maria Maggiore zu Rom, Wiesbaden, 1975) has shown, of a femina clarissima rather than of an empress.
7 29 30Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums, in L'Osservatore Romano (January 2018, taken up by the AP on 24 January 2018): the painting more likely dates from the 11th-13th centuries; The Art Newspaper (17 April 2018, 2017-2018 restoration of the Vatican Museums): the wooden support is radiocarbon-dated between the late 9th century and the early 11th century.
8 38Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major, official site (basilicasantamariamaggiore.va), "Salus Populi Romani": icon attributed by tradition to Saint Luke; procession of Saint Gregory the Great (590-604) against the plague according to the account of Baronius; crowns and jewels offered by the popes from Clement VIII to Pius XII; Pauline Chapel built by Paul V as the shrine of the icon.
9 39Dicastery for Evangelization, decree on the indulgence of the Jubilee 2025 (13 May 2024, vatican.va): the four papal major basilicas — Saint Peter in the Vatican, Saint John Lateran, Saint Mary Major and Saint Paul Outside the Walls.
10vatican.va, rite of opening of the Holy Door (Jubilee 2000): the pope opens the Holy Door of the four Roman basilicas; Holy See Press Office (Jubilee 2025): the four Holy Doors of the papal basilicas, opened for the passage of pilgrims.
11OSV News (Catholic Review, April 2025), "The history of St. Mary Major": papal altar reserved to the pope or to the priest he authorises there; customary Mass of the pope on 15 August, feast of the Assumption.
12Official site of the basilica (basilicasantamariamaggiore.va), "Interior of the Basilica" page: the only Early Christian basilica to have kept its original appearance intact; churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF): the nave survives structurally intact with its original mosaic decoration. On Saint John Lateran, of Constantinian origin but remodelled: pilgrim-info.com, "Archbasilica of St John Lateran": rebuilding entrusted by Innocent X to Borromini in 1646 for the jubilee of 1650; italyscapes.com, "Basilica of Saint John Lateran": Borromini kept the ancient five-nave plan but gave the church its Baroque appearance; façade by Alessandro Galilei (1732-1736).
13churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF), § Re-foundation: first church in Rome dedicated to Our Lady, about a century older than Santa Maria Antiqua — hence the pre-eminence expressed by the adjective maggiore among Rome's Marian churches.
14churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF), §§ Central Nave and Sanctuary, 17th century: originally 21 bays and 42 Ionic columns (38 in Hymettus marble, 4 in grey granite), forty surviving (36 of marble and 4 of granite). The figured lengths (86 m interior, 92 m exterior) put forward by non-scholarly tourist sites (roma-o-matic, zainoo, aroundus) have been corroborated by neither a scholarly survey nor the official site: they are withdrawn pending better.
15Liber Pontificalis: first church (Basilica Liberiana) founded on 5 August 358 by Pope Liberius; official site of the basilica, "Storia" page: dream of the Virgin to the patrician John and to Pope Liberius, at the origin of the tradition.
16Liber Pontificalis, Life of Liberius: foundation of the Basilica Liberiana on 5 August 358 by Pope Liberius; churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF), § Liberian Basilica: legend of the patrician John and his wife, dream of the Virgin to the couple and to Pope Liberius, snowfall in August (traditionally 358).
17churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF), § Liberian Basilica: the pope traced with a staff, in the snow, the perimeter of the church, built at John's expense; traditional year 358.
18EWTN: the Dedication of Saint Mary Major is an optional memorial celebrated every 5 August; General Roman Calendar (1969 revision): memorial of the Dedication, with no reference to the legend of the snow.
19Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major, official site (basilicasantamariamaggiore.va), "History, Art and Spirituality" section: tradition of the shower of white rose petals released from the vault of the Pauline Chapel on 5 August, in memory of the miraculous snow, at the feast of the Dedication.
20churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF), § Liberian Basilica: the account of the legend of the miracle of the snow goes back to 1288 AD.
21Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 495: Mary, Theotokos, is truly Mother of God because the one she conceived by the Holy Spirit is truly her Son according to the flesh and is none other than the eternal Son of the Father. See also § 466 on the definition of Ephesus against Nestorius.
23Mosaic inscription at the centre of the triumphal arch: XYSTUS EPISCOPUS PLEBI DEI, "Sixtus, bishop, to the people of God".
25Pleiades (scholarly gazetteer of ancient places), "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry: the origins of the church go back to the reign of Celestine I (422-432).
26churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF), § Central Nave and Sanctuary: forty-two original panels, thirty-six surviving (six lost in the building of the Pauline and Sistine chapels), nine of them replaced by frescoes in 1593 — that is, twenty-seven 5th-century mosaics; official site, "Paleochristian Mosaics" page: decoration of Sixtus III in the nave and on the triumphal arch, beginning of great Christian narrative art; on the left Abraham and Jacob, on the right Moses and Joshua.
28churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF), § Nave ceiling: nave roofed in 1455 under Callixtus III, traditional attribution to Giuliano da Sangallo (doubtful — worksite begun by Leon Battista Alberti, completed by Sangallo); gilding carried out, according to the traditional account, with the first gold from the Inca empire, offered to Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) by Ferdinand and Isabella; official site, "Interior of the Basilica" page: gilded wooden coffered ceiling designed by Giuliano and Antonio da Sangallo.
31churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF), § Nave floor: the surviving Cosmatesque pavement of the central nave was laid under Pope Eugene III (1145-1153) at the expense of the patrons Scoto di Paparone and his son Giovanni; restored in 1593 by Cardinal Pinelli, then in the 18th century by Fuga.
32churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF), § Apse: Coronation of the Virgin executed in the 1290s by the Franciscan Jacopo Torriti (signed work dated 1296), come to Rome for the Franciscan pope Nicholas IV, completed after the pope's death under the supervision of Cardinals Pietro and Jacopo Colonna; official site, "Medieval Mosaics" page: direction of the apse works entrusted to Torriti under Nicholas IV (1288-1292), scenes of the life of Mary below, Coronation above.
33churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF), § Campanile: 75-metre Romanesque bell tower, the tallest in Rome, rebuilt between 1370 and 1378 under the pontificate of Pope Gregory XI (1370-1378), replacing an earlier bell tower damaged by an earthquake (the church having suffered in the quake of 1348, repaired from 1377); M. Hayez, "Gregorio XI, papa", Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 59, Treccani, 2002: on 17 January 1377 the pope entered Rome — an actual return distinct from the 1370-1378 worksite.
34churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF), §§ 18th century, Façade: restoration ordered by Benedict XIV (1740-1758), architect Ferdinando Fuga, works from 1741, façade designed in 1743 with portico and loggia protecting the medieval mosaics; official site, "Exterior of the Basilica" page: façade raised for the jubilee of 1750.
35churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF), § Façade: mosaics commissioned under Nicholas IV (1288-1292), executed by Filippo Rusuti, completed in 1308 (signed upper register); official site, "Exterior of the Basilica" page: Rusuti mosaics (about 1300), Christ enthroned surrounded by saints and the Miracle of the Snows.
36Official site, "Salus Populi Romani" page: cedar-wood panel (117 × 79 cm), Virgin half-length bearing the Child, in the type of the Hodegetria; icon cleaned and restored by the Vatican Museums in 2018.
37Vatican News: in 1838, Gregory XVI crowned the icon; during the Marian year 1954, Pius XII renewed the gesture of devotion; official site, "Salus Populi Romani" page: offerings of crowns and jewels from Clement VIII (1592-1605) to Gregory XVI (1831-1846) and Pius XII (1939-1958); on 1 November 1954, Pius XII had the icon carried in procession from Saint Mary Major to Saint Peter's, where it was crowned Queen.
40churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF), § 17th century: Pauline Chapel, funerary chapel of Paul V (1605-1621), begun in 1605, shell completed in 1611, decoration continued for five years (architect Flaminio Ponzio); official site, "Salus Populi Romani" page: Paul V had the Pauline Chapel built as the shrine of the icon.
41Official site, "Holy Crib" page: as early as the pontificate of Theodore (642-649), a native of Jerusalem, the sanctuary is called Sancta Maria "ad Praesepem"; five pieces of sycamore wood (ficus sycomorus) from the manger; churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF): how or when the relic of the manger arrived here is unknown — tradition attributes it to Theodore I after the fall of Jerusalem (638), but the name ad Praesepem already appears in a 6th-century deed of donation (Flavia Xantippa).
42 43Official site, "Holy Crib" page: Confessio built by Virginio Vespignani in 1861-1864 at the request of Pius IX (1846-1878); cradle-shaped crystal reliquary designed by Giuseppe Valadier (1802); churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF), § Confessio: gilt-silver reliquary offered by the ambassador of Portugal, designed by Valadier, replacing an 18th-century reliquary plundered by the French; statue of Pius IX by Ignazio Jacometti added in 1883.
44New Liturgical Movement, "Station Churches of the Christmas Season": the midnight Mass (in nocte) has as its station Saint Mary Major, at the altar of the crib, while the dawn Mass (in aurora) has as its station Saint Anastasia; cf. Dom Guéranger, L'Année liturgique, Christmas season: the first midnight Mass is the station at Saint Mary Major. churches-of-rome.info, "Santa Maria Maggiore" entry (PDF): Gregory VII celebrated the Mass of the vigil of the Nativity there when he was seized on the eve of Christmas 1075 — the first testimony of a tradition that continued until the 19th century.
45Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major / Vatican News, "Description of the tomb of Pope Francis" and "The Pope's tomb, in marble from the land of his Italian forebears", April 2025: devotion of Francis to the Salus Populi Romani, prayer before and after each apostolic journey; tomb located in the side nave between the Pauline Chapel and the Sforza Chapel, near the altar of Saint Francis; Ligurian stone slab engraved with the single name FRANCISCUS, reproduction of the Pope's pectoral cross on the wall of the loculus.
46 48 50 51Official site of the basilica (basilicasantamariamaggiore.va), "Salus Populi Romani" page (https://www.basilicasantamariamaggiore.va/en/basilica/storia-e-arte/salus-popoli-romani.html), "Pope Francis and his devotion to Salus Populi Romani" page (2025, https://www.basilicasantamariamaggiore.va/en/eventi-e-novita/2025/pope-francis-and-his-devotion-to-salus-populi-romani.html) and "First Anniversary of Pope Francis's Death" page (21 April 2026, https://www.basilicasantamariamaggiore.va/en/eventi-e-novita/2026/primo-anniversario-della-morte-di-papa-francesco-le-celebrazioni.html): commemorative plaque unveiled on 21 April 2026, the first anniversary of the death of Francis, affixed to the right of the Pauline Chapel; inscription "Franciscvs Pont Max qui centies vicies sexies pie ad pedes Matris Salvtis Popvli Romani adstitit sua sponte hac in Basilica Papali quiescit – D XXI M Aprilis A MMXXVI – Primo obitus anniversario"; the figure 126 corresponds to the pope's visits before the icon (first visit on 14 March 2013, last on 12 April 2025).
47The Tablet (December 2023, confirmed April 2025): Francis the first pope buried outside the Vatican crypt in more than a century, Leo XIII having been buried at Saint John Lateran in 1903; last pope buried at Saint Mary Major: Clement IX (1669).
49