Basilica of Saint Mary Major

Image: Wikimedia Commons

On the Esquiline Hill in Rome, Saint Mary Major is one of the four papal basilicas and the largest church in the city dedicated to the Virgin; legend tells that Mary herself marked its site with a miraculous snowfall in the height of summer, remembered each 5 August, the feast of Our Lady of the Snows. It is the only Roman basilica to preserve its Early Christian core with its fifth-century mosaics, and it guards two immense treasures: the icon of the Salus Populi Romani, attributed by tradition to Saint Luke, and the relic of the Holy Crib of Bethlehem. Beloved of the popes, it holds the tombs of seven of them, now joined by Pope Francis, as well as that of Bernini.