Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore

Santa Maria Maggiore, the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, stands on the summit of the Esquiline Hill and is one of Rome's four major papal basilicas. Unlike most great Roman churches, it has kept the bones of its original Early Christian building. The church was built in the 420s and 430s and consecrated by Pope Sixtus III in 434, shortly after the Council of Ephesus proclaimed Mary the Mother of God, and it was one of the first churches in the West dedicated to her. Although it stands in Italy rather than Vatican City, it belongs to the Holy See and enjoys extraterritorial status.

A legend first recorded after the year 1000 tells that on 5 August, at the height of a Roman summer, snow fell on the Esquiline to show where the church should be built. The story gave the basilica its other name, Our Lady of the Snows. What is certain is what survives inside: a long, wide nave on two rows of ancient columns, trimmed to match in the 18th century, and above them 5th-century mosaics of Old Testament stories, such as Moses parting the Red Sea, with more on the triumphal arch showing the childhood of Christ. They are among the oldest surviving images of the Virgin in Christian art. The apse mosaic of the Coronation of the Virgin, signed by the Franciscan Jacopo Torriti, dates from 1295. Overhead, the coffered ceiling designed by Giuliano da Sangallo is said to be gilded with the first gold brought back from the Americas, presented by Ferdinand and Isabella to the Spanish pope Alexander VI.

Later popes added two large side chapels. The Sistine Chapel (not to be confused with the Vatican's), built by Domenico Fontana for Sixtus V, contains the tombs of Sixtus V and Pius V; beneath it are fragments of a Nativity scene attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio, and Ignatius of Loyola celebrated his first Mass here on Christmas Day 1538. The Pauline or Borghese Chapel holds the Salus Populi Romani, a venerated icon of the Virgin and Child regarded as protector of the Roman people. Under the high altar, the Crypt of the Nativity holds a crystal reliquary by Giuseppe Valadier said to contain wood from the crib of Bethlehem. Gian Lorenzo Bernini and his family are buried just outside the Sistine Chapel.

Outside, the medieval façade mosaics are screened by a loggia designed by Ferdinando Fuga and completed in 1743, and the 14th-century bell tower, about 75 m high, is the tallest in Rome. The Marian column in the square in front was put up in 1614 to designs by Carlo Maderno. Pope Francis was buried here in 2025, in the side aisle between the Sforza and Pauline chapels.

Getting there

The basilica stands on Piazza dell'Esquilino in central Rome. Ciampino Airport (CIA) is about 14 km away; from Fiumicino, the Leonardo Express train runs to Rome Termini, the city's main station and the interchange of metro lines A and B. The basilica is an active church and pilgrimage site.