Santa Maria Maggiore: the first basilica built by a pope in Rome

SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE: THE FIRST BASILICA BUILT BY A POPE IN ROME

Among the Early Christian basilicas of Rome, S. Maria Maggiore is the one which best preserves its structure and an essential part of its original decoration. As a manifesto of the rebirth of Classicism expressed in a new Christian idiom, the building looks backwards toward the monumental civic architecture of the high Roman empire and forwards toward the religious architecture of the Christian Middle Ages. Despite its historical importance and good state of preservation, many points remain to be clarified about the oldest phases of the church.
Several recent publications on Santa Maria Maggiore have explored the building's history, early use, and decorative program.

New important pieces of evidence also emerged from the excavation conducted at the beginning of the 1970s. These excavations under the side aisles of the basilica were undertaken in order to eliminate the source of humidity that was damaging the fabric of the building. On that occasion there came to light remains of an impressive Roman house which occupied the northwest half of the area on which the church stands, as well as ample stretches of the foundations of the fifth century basilica.

The house was built around the middle of the first century A.D. and was transformed and redecorated many times in the four centuries of its existence. Its richness and its position in one of the best quarters of the ancient city indicate that its owners were part of the Roman elite who occupied this high point of the city. Part of the house's large peristyle was excavated, as were several rooms on the northwest (the side of the basilica's apse); but the principal part of the house still remains buried to the northeast of the basilica where there are also traces of a small bath complex. In the last quarter of the second century A.D., the peristyle of the house was painted with the fresco of a calendar illustrating country scenes. Each month had a painting showing the work appropriate to the season of the year.

It is probable that this decoration alluded to the rural properties of the owner. According to a recent hypothesis the last occupant of the house may have been Flavius Anicius Auchenius Bassus, the consul of 431, whose family was known to have owned property in this part of Rome. New observations made during research which is still in progress make this hypothesis appear less likely; instead it seems that there was a period in which the house was abandoned between the end of the fourth century A.D. and the time when the new basilica was built.

The basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is located on top of one of the seven hills, the Esquiline and it's part of the vatican territory in Rome: this means that, once you will visit this church, you are automatically in another country, the vatican. This temple is visible from one of the sides of the main railway station of Rome, Termini ( 5 minutes walking distance ).

A conflicting theory, however, associates the initiation of the project with Pope Celestine (422-432). Other remains found during the excavations include the foundations of the nave and side aisles and of the original apse. In the 1290s, under Pope Nicolaus IV, the fifth-century apse was demolished and rebuilt in a new position behind the old one.
Construction of the Early Christian basilica required the partial destruction of the earlier Roman house. The southwest wall of the house was pushed into service as both a retaining wall and the foundation for the church. The remainder of the house was buried under six meters of earth to create a level platform atop which the new church could be built.

The new ground level conformed to the high point of the hill, where the facade of the basilica was built. Extending 86 meters in length and 35 meters in width, the new basilica subsumed several properties atop the Cispian Hill. New information that came to light in the excavations have solved an old problem. According to the biography of Sixtus III, this Pope supposedly built the Basilica of S. Maria Maggiore "which the ancients called the Basilica of Liberius". If correct, Sixtus' basilica will have been the rebuilding of a basilica originally constructed a century earlier by Pope Liberius (352-356). This notice in the biography has caused numerous difficulties, and it has been suggested that it grew out of an erroneous identification made by the redactor of the sixth-century biography . Recently, an attempt has been made to defend the notice in the Liber Pontificalis by proposing to limit the building of Liberius to the area of the nave of the Basilica of Sixtus III.

Santa Maria Maggiore is popular in Rome for many reasons. First of all because,unlike the other basilicas of the fifth century in Rome it has been built not by a Roman emperor but by a pope. Therefore, this church contains art masterpieces that make the biggest basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary very popular like relics of Jesus' crib and the tomb of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and his father Peter who worked together for a period of time under the papacy of pope Urban VIII Barberini.

In this famous church are buried several popes, like Sixtus V, the so called " pope architect" who restored the basilica of saint John in Lateran and erected the roman obelisks in the squares of Rome. The Borghese pope Paul V is buried in the chapel Borghese and under his burial there is th tomb of Paolina Borghese Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon. But what will give you an unique experience when visiting santa Maria Maggiore are the wonderful mosaics depicting the Coronation of the Virgin Mary with the apostles and saint Francis of Assisi and saint Anthony from Padua.

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