Rome, Italy (358 AD)
Our Lady of the Snows

Summary

A wealthy but childless Roman couple, John and his wife decided to leave their fortune to the Church. The Virgin appeared to them on the night of August 4th and told them that she wished a basilica to be constructed on the Esquiline Hill which would be outlined in snow. Pope Liberius also received the same message from the Virgin and ordered the construction of St. Mary Major Basilica.

May 17, 352

Pope Liberius succeeds Pope Julius I as Bishop of Rome.

Aug 4, 358

A wealthy but childless Roman couple, John and his wife decided to leave their fortune to the Church. They often prayed to the Virgin asking for guidance on how their wealth could be put to use. The Virgin appeared to them on the night of August 4th and told them that she wished a basilica to be constructed on the Esquiline Hill. She would miraculously leave snow in the middle of the hot month of August on the precise area in which she wanted the church. Pope Liberius also received the same message from the Virgin.

Aug 5, 358

The next morning John and his wife and Pope Liberius went to the top of the Equiline Hill which had been covered with snow. After they measured out the area for the basilica, the snow disappeared. Pope Liberius immediately called for the construction of the Basilica.

360

St. Mary Major (Santa Maria Maggiore) was completed.

Sept 24, 366

Pope Liberius died.

432

Santa Maria Maggiore as we see it today took shape, when Pope Sixtus III (432-40) decided to build a new and more magnificent
structure near (if not on) the site of Liberius' former Marian
church.

1250

The miracle was first recorded in writing by Fra Bartolomeo of Trento.

1290

Nicholas IV (1288-92) replaced Sixtus III's apsidal Mosaics with a new portrayal of the Virgin in Glory. A glittering gold and jewel-like mosaic
"Coronation of the Virgin," executed by the Franciscan monk Giacomo Torriti, then became the aesthetic focal point of the entire basilica.

1585

A later Renaissance Pope, Sixtus V (1585-90) decided to make Santa Maria Maggiore the very heart of Rome. In his reorganization
project, carried out by Domenica Fontana, the basilica was to be the center of a radial series of streets, extending like the points of a star to connect with Rome's most important sacred sites. An obelisk, removed by Fontana from Augustus' mauseleum on the orders of Sixtus V, was erected to the rear of the basilica's apse, and marks the focal point of this ambitious urbanistic vision. Sixtus also removed the earlier reproduction of the sacred manger to an elegant crypt beneath his own side chapel.

1611

Across from Sixtus V's chapel, Pope Paul V built his own chapel to house an earlier icon of the Madonna with child.

1741

The current neo-classical facade was designed and executed by Ferdinando Fuga on the orders of Pope Benedict XIV.