The Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore on the Esquiline hill is one of the four great papal basilicas of Rome (alongside San Giovanni in Laterano, San Paolo Fuori le Mura, and San Pietro in Vaticano) and the one that most tourists see least carefully. The exterior, a baroque façade added in the eighteenth century by Fuga, gives no indication of what is inside: the fifth-century nave mosaics, running in a continuous band above the nave colonnade for the full length of the basilica, are the most complete and best-preserved early Christian mosaic program in any Roman church. They were created in the 430s-440s AD under Pope Sixtus III, approximately simultaneously with the construction of the church. They show Old Testament narrative cycles (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua) in the specific style of the Theodosian-era Roman court art that was transitioning between the classical figurative tradition and the emerging Byzantine aesthetic.
The building itself is a genuine fifth-century basilica, the nave colonnade, the triumphal arch, and the overall spatial proportions preserve the original Early Christian form under the later decorative additions. Walking the nave and looking up at the mosaic frieze is looking at the same pictorial program that fifth-century Roman Christians looked at in the decade after the Council of Ephesus declared Mary Theotokos (Mother of God), a theological definition that this basilica was built partly to celebrate.
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What to See at Santa Maria Maggiore
The Nave Mosaics (432-440 AD)
Twenty-seven mosaic panels arranged in two horizontal bands above the nave colonnade depict the Old Testament narrative: on the left, the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. On the right, the stories of Moses and Joshua. The panels are high above the floor and difficult to read in detail without binoculars. A small mirror in your bag, angled upward, allows closer examination of individual panels' figure groups. The quality of the figures, their classical drapery, their specific narrative gestures, shows the immediate derivation from the Roman pictorial tradition that Giotto would rediscover a millennium later.
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The triumphal arch at the end of the nave has a separate mosaic program from the Annunciation to the Presentation in the Temple, slightly later in date and more Byzantine in style. The specific image of the Christ Child, depicted on the triumphal arch as a young adult in Roman imperial dress rather than as an infant, reflects the theological debates of the period: the council that commissioned this basilica was still arguing about Christ's human and divine natures.
The Salus Populi Romani
In the Capella Paolina (the seventeenth-century Borghese chapel to the left of the high altar), the icon of the Salus Populi Romani, the "Health of the Roman People," a Byzantine icon traditionally dated to the apostolic period (which modern scholarship places at approximately the sixth century), is the most venerated Marian image in Rome. Pope Francis has repeatedly visited this icon before and after major journeys. It has specific importance in the current Papacy as the object of devotion that Francis identified as central to his spirituality.
Q&A: Santa Maria Maggiore
Is Santa Maria Maggiore free to visit?
The basilica interior is free. The loggia with the original Torriti apse mosaics (thirteenth century) requires a small paid admission for the guided access. Open daily 7am-7pm (winter) and 7am-8pm (summer).
What is the Snow Miracle?
According to tradition, in August 352 AD a wealthy Roman couple named John and his wife, and Pope Liberius, were instructed in a vision to build a church dedicated to Mary on the Esquiline Hill where snow would fall the next morning. On the morning of August 5, in the middle of a Roman summer, snow reportedly covered the summit of the Esquiline Hill in the exact outline of the future church. The basilica was founded on this site. The celebration of this event (the Festa della Madonna della Neve) still takes place annually on August 5 in the basilica with a shower of white rose petals falling from the ceiling to simulate snow.
Internal Links
- San Giovanni in Laterano: The Pope's Other Roman Basilica
- San Paolo Fuori le Mura: The Fourth Major Basilica
- Early Christian Mosaics: Ravenna vs Rome Compared
- Self-Guided Rome Walk: Including the Esquiline
- The Esquiline Hill: Roman Context of the Basilica
- Baroque Rome: The Façade That Hides the Fifth Century
- Rome Holy Week: Santa Maria Maggiore's Role
