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:''For other uses, see Santa Maria Maggiore (disambiguation).''


The 'Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore' — also known as the 'Basilica di Santa Maria della Neve' and 'Basilica Liberiana' in the Italian language and 'Saint Mary Major Basilica' or the 'Liberian Basilica' in the English language — is an ancient Catholic basilica of Rome. It is one of the four major basilicas, and one of the five Patriarchal basilicas associated with the Pentarchy: St. John Lateran, St. Lawrence outside the Walls, St. Peter and St. Paul outside the Walls, and Santa Maria Maggiore. The Liberian Basilica is one of the ''tituli'', presided over by a patron—in this case Pope Liberius—that housed the major congregations of early Christians in Rome. Santa Maria Maggiore is the only Roman basilica that retained the core of its original structure, left intact despite several additional construction projects and damage from the earthquake of 1348.
The name of the church reflects two ideas of greatness, both that of a major basilica as opposed to a minor basilica and also that of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as the true Mother of God. In the Greek language this doctrine is called Theotokos, officially adopted at the Council of Ephesus in 431. The Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore is the largest and most important place of prayer dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
After the Avignon papacy formally ended and the Papacy returned to Rome, the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore became a temporary Palace of the Popes due to the deteriorated state of the Lateran Palace. The papal residence was later moved to the Palace of the Vatican in present-day Vatican City.

Contents

Patriarchal basilica

Origin

Architecture

Restoration

List of major artworks in the basilica

The Capella Sistina & the Crypt of the Nativity

Archpriests of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore since 1780

External links

Patriarchal basilica

A patriarchal basilica, Santa Maria Maggiore is often personally used by the pope. Most notably, the pope presides over the annual Feast of the Assumption of Mary, celebrated each August 15 at the basilica. A high, canopied altar dedicated to the pope is used by the pope alone — except for a choice few priests including the archpriest. The pope gives charge of Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore to an archpriest, usually an archbishop made cardinal in consistory. The archpriest was formerly the titular Latin Patriarch of Antioch, a title abolished in 1964.
The church was built in the 16th century by Matteo Barresi, but was altered in 18th century and its facade was left unfinished. The interior is full of decorations and there are several and valuable stuccoes and a stunning line of columns. To give more splendor to the church, there are several sculptures made by Gagini's school and many paintings representing sacred images. Amongst them, we mention for their beauty, the paintings by Filippo Paladino (1544-1614), in the high altar. The best one is that one epresenting "Our Lady on the throne with Saints.
The current archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore is Cardinal Bernard Francis Law; John Paul II assigned Law to this position after his resignation as Archbishop of Boston on December 13, 2002, in an act that elicited much criticism, given the fact that Law was arguably one of the most controversial Church officials in the United States. It was in his Archdiocese that the 2002 scandal initially erupted.
In addition to the archpriest and his servant priests, a chapter of canons are resident in Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. In addition, Redemptorist and Dominican priests serve the church daily — offering confessions and administering other sacraments.

Origin

Pope Liberius commissioned the construction of the 'Liberian Basilica', circa 360. He wanted a shrine built at the site where an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary manifested herself before a local patrician and his wife. According to tradition, the outline of the church was physically laid out on the ground by a miraculous snowfall that took place on the night August 4-5 352. Dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of the Snows, local Roman Catholics commemorate the miracle on each anniversary by dropping white rose petals from the dome during the feast mass.

Architecture

The present building dates from the time of Pope Sixtus III (432 - 440) and contains many ancient mosaics from this period. The Athenian marble columns supporting the nave are even older, and either come from the first basilica, or from another antique Roman building. The 16th century coffered ceiling, to a design by Giuliano da Sangallo is said to be gilded with Incan gold presented by Ferdinand and Isabella to the Spanish pope Alexander VI(something which factually is erroneous, since the Incan empire was conquered during the reign of Charles V). The medieval bell tower is the highest in Rome, at 240 feet, (about 75 m.). The apse mosaic, the Coronation of the Virgin, is from the late 13th century, by the Franciscan friar, Jacopo Torriti. The Basilica also contains frescoes by Giovanni Baglione, in the Cappella Borghese.
The façade with its screening loggia was added by Pope Benedict XIV in 1743, to designs by Ferdinando Fuga that did not damage the mosaics of the façade. The wing of the ''canonica'' (sacristy to its left and a matching wing to the right (designed by Flaminio Ponzio) give the basilica's front the aspect of a palace facing 'Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore'. To the right of the Basilica's façade is a memorial representing a column in the form of an up-ended cannon barrel topped with a cross: it was erected by Pope Clement VIII immediately after the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of Protestants, though today it is reputed to celebrate the end of the French Wars of Religion [1].

The Marian column erected in 1614, to designs of Carlo Maderno is the model for numerous Marian columns erected in Catholic countries in thanksgiving for remission of the plague during the Baroque era. (An example is the Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc, the Czech Republic). The column itself is the sole remaining from Constantine's Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine in ''Campo Vaccino'', as the Roman Forum was called until the 18th century[2]; Maderno's fountain at the base combines the armorial eagles and dragons of Paul V.
The column in the Piazza celebrates the famous icon of the Virgin Mary in the Pauline chapel of the Basilica. It is known as ''Salus Populi Romani'', or ''Health of the Roman People'', due to a miracle in which the icon helped keep plague from the city. The icon is at least a thousand years old, and tradition holds that it was painted from life by St Luke the Evangelist. (According to published material at the Basilica, radiocarbon dating establishes the age of the icon to be approximately 2,000 years, thus reinforcing its sacred tradition.)

Restoration

In the centuries that have passed, the weather has been Santa Maria Maggiore's biggest rival. The pollution of a modern city combined with humidity puts at risk the old churches and the artwork they hold. Centuries before the first vehicle spewed exhaust into the city, during the late sixteenth century, a number of the Vatican's churches were renovated and redecorated. The basilica itself was restored and extended by various popes, including Eugene III (1145-1153), Nicholas IV (1288-92), Clement X (1670-76), and Benedict XIV (1740-58), who in the 1740s commissioned Ferdinando Fuga to build the present façade and to modify the interior. The interior of the Santa Maria Maggiore underwent a broad renovation encompassing all of its altars between the years 1575 and 1630.

List of major artworks in the basilica

★ Early Christian mosaic cycle depicting Old Testament events, 5th century

★ the Salus Populi Romani, a much venerated early icon of the Virgin and Child.

★ Funerary monument of Clement IX (1671) by Carlo Rainaldi with the papal bust is by Domenico Guidi.

★ Temporary catafalque for Philip IV of Spain designed in 1665 by Rainaldi

★ Funerary monument of Pope Nicholas IV, designed by Domenico Fontana in 1574.

★ Bust of Costanzo Patrizi by Algardi.

★ Sacristy frescoes by Passignano and Giuseppe Puglia,

★ ''Saint Cajetan holding the Holy Child'', by Bernini.

★ High altar sculpture by Pietro Bracci, (c. 1750).

★ Bust of Pius IX (1880) by Ignazio Jacometti.

★ Pauline Chapel frescoes, by Guido Reni

★ Frescoes for the monument of Clement VIII, Lanfranco

★ Cesi Chapel tombs by Guglielmo della Porta

★ Altar, confessio and Presepio (crib) sculptures by Arnolfo di Cambio, about 1290

The Capella Sistina & the Crypt of the Nativity

Below the sanctuary of Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore is the 'Crypt of the Nativity' or the ''Bethlehem Crypt'', which is the burial place for prominent Catholics, including Saint Jerome, the 4th century Doctor of the Church who translated the Bible into the Latin language (the Vulgate); popes; and Gianlorenzo Bernini. Saint Ignatius of Loyola presided over his first mass as a priest on this altar on December 25, 1538 (previously below the central main altar).
The decoration of the ''Sistine chapel'' of Santa Maria Maggiore, which should not be confused with the more famous Sistine chapel of the Vatican, was commissioned by the administration of Pope Sixtus V. The architect Domenico Fontana was called to design the chapel to house the presumptive relics of the Nativity crib. The original Nativity Oratory, with the ''presepe'' built in the XIII century by Arnolfo di Cambio, is below the chapel. The chapel contains the tombs of Sixtus V and his early patron Pius V (design by Fontana and statue by Leonardo Sarzana). The statue of Sixtus V was sculpted by Giovanni Antonio Paracca, called ''il Valsoldo''. The main altar in the Chapel has four gilded bronze angels by Sebastiano Torregiani, along the ciborium.
The Mannerist interior decoration was completed (1587-9) by a large team of artists, directed by Cesare Nebbia and Giovanni Guerra. While the art biographer, Giovanni Baglione allocates specific works to individual artists, recent scholarship finds that the hand of Nebbia drew preliminary sketches for many, if not all, of the frescoes. Baglione also concedes the roles of Nebbia and Guerra could be summarized as "Nebbia drew, and Guerra supervised the teams".

Painter	Work
Giovanni Battista Pozzo	''Angelic Glory, Visitation, Annunciation, Joseph’s dream, St. Paul & John Evangelist, St. Peter enters Rome,& Massacre of infants''
Lattanzio Mainardi	''Tamar, Fares, Zara, Solomon, & Boaz''
Hendrick van den Broeck (Arrigo Fiammingo)	''Esrom, Aram, Aminabad & Naassom''
Paris Nogari	''Ruth, Jesse, David, Solomon & Roboam; & the Holy Family''
Giacomo Stella	''Jehoshaphat & Jehoram, Jacob, Judah & his brothers, Sacrifice of Isacc''
Angiolo Nebbia	''Ozias & Jonathan, Abiud and Eliacim, Manassah and Amon, Josiah and Jechonia, Salatiele & Zorobabel''
Salvatore Fontana	''Jacob, Eli, Eliezer and Nathan, Herod orders massacre of the innocents, Annunciation''
Cesare Nebbia	''Chaziel & Ezekias, Sadoch, Achim, Amoz''
Ercole from Bologna	''Flight from Egypt" and "Mary visits Elisabeth's house''
Andrea Lilio	''Magi before Herod''

Others include Ferdinando Sermei, Giacomo Stella, Paul Bril, and Ferraù Fenzoni.^[1]

Archpriests of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore since 1780

★ Emmanuele Cardinal de Gregorio (1780 – 1821?)

★ Antonio Cardinal Despuig y Dameto (28 December 1803 – 2 May 1813

★ Giovanni Cardinal Gallarati Scotti (1814 – 6 October 1819

★ Annibale Francesco Cardinal Della Genga (10 February 1821 – 28 September 1823)

★ Benedetto Cardinal Naro (1 January 1824 – 6 October 1832)

★ Carlo Cardinal Odescalchi (1832 – 21 November 1834)

★ Giuseppe Cardinal Sala (11 December 1838 – 23 August 1839)

★ Luigi Cardinal del Drago (29 August 1839 – 28 April 1845)

★ Costantino Cardinal Naro (24 April 1845 – 21 September 1867)

★ Gustav Cardinal von Hohenlouhe-Schillingsfürt (15 July 1878 – 30 October 1896)

★ Vicenzo Cardinal Vannutelli (16 December 1896 – 9 July 1930)

★ Bonaventura Cardinal Cerretti (16 July 1930 – 8 May 1933)

★ Angelo Cardinal Dolci (22 May 1933 – 13 September 1939)

★ Alessandro Cardinal Verde (11 October 1939 – 29 March 1958)

★ Carlo Cardinal Confalonieri (16 November 1959 – 25 February 1973)

★ Luigi Cardinal Dadaglio (15 December 1986 – 22 August 1990)

★ Ugo Cardinal Poletti (17 January 1991 – 25 February 1997)

★ Carlo Cardinal Furno (29 September 1997 – 27 May 2004)

★ Bernard Cardinal Law (27 May 2004 - present)

External links

★ The Papal Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore from The Vatican

★ EWTN Profile of Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore

★ Satellite Photo of St. Mary's Major Basilica

★ Images and Links Further Information on Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore

★ Kunsthistorie.com gallery

★ Roberto Piperno, "S. Maria Maggiore"

★ A look at the restoration