Santa Maria Maggiore is the junior of the four papal basilicas in Rome, the other three being San Giovanni in Laterano, San Pietro in Vaticano and San Paolo fuori le Mura. In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI abolished the title of “patriarchal basilica” formerly given to these four churches.
The basilica is regarded as the most important church worldwide dedicated to Our Lady. The parish (only created in 1824) has been appropriated to the church of Santi Vito e Modesto nearby, so the basilica is no longer parochial. Since 1929, the basilica has been "extraterritorial". This means that it is part of Italy, but is completely in the care of the Vatican City with the same legal status as a foreign embassy.
It is now agreed that the present church was built under Celestine I (422–432) not under Pope Sixtus III (432–440), who consecrated the basilica on the 5th of August 434 to the Virgin Mary. Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the first churches built in honour of the Virgin Mary, was erected in the immediate aftermath of the Council of Ephesus of 431, which proclaimed Mary Mother of God. Pope Sixtus III built it to commemorate this decision.
The basilica was restored, redecorated and extended by various popes, including Eugene III (1145–1153), Nicholas IV (1288–92), Clement X (1670–76), and Benedict XIV (1740–58), who in the 1740s commissioned Ferdinando Fuga to build the present façade and to modify the interior. The interior of the Santa Maria Maggiore underwent a broad renovation encompassing all of its altars between the years 1575 and 1630.
The original architecture of Santa Maria Maggiore was classical and traditionally Roman perhaps to convey the idea that Santa Maria Maggiore represented old imperial Rome as well as its Christian future. During the Baroque period are built the two cupolas, as well as the western and eastern facades.
The basilical plan has been well preserved inside. The edifice has a nave with side aisles. Then comes a shallow transept, and finally an external semi-circular apse. The overall length of the interior is 86 metres.
Unlike other old Roman churches which might have a number of external side chapels, the basilica has a few very large ones. The two enormous papal mortuary chapels of the Cappella Sistina and Cappella Paolina could count as churches in their own right, in fact, the latter is the basilica's location for saying ordinary Masses. They are through the archways cut into the side colonnades in 1611. To the left are two other large chapels, and to the right one smaller one. Most of the near right hand side is taken up by a wing containing the sacristy and baptistry, with the Papal apartments on the first floor above. The mediaeval Chapel of St Michael is accessed through the baptistry, and is now the shop. The museum is accessed through this in turn.
The mosaics found in Santa Maria Maggiore are one of the oldest representations of the Virgin Mary in Christian Late Antiquity.
The triumphal arch at the head of the nave is illustrated with magnificent mosaics depicting different scenes of Christ and the Virgin Mary. There was a difference in the styles used in the triumphal arch mosaics compared to those of the nave; the style of the triumphal arch was much more linear and flat as one scholar describes it, not nearly as much action, emotion and movement in them as there were in the Old Testament mosaics of the nave.
Under the high altar of the basilica is the Crypt of the Nativity or Bethlehem Crypt, with a crystal reliquary designed by Giuseppe Valadier said to contain wood from the Holy Crib of the nativity of Jesus Christ. Here is the burial place of Saint Jerome, the 4th-century Doctor of the Church who translated the Bible into the Latin language (the Vulgate).
The Mannerist interior decoration of the Sistine Chapel was completed (1587–1589) by a large team of artists, directed by Cesare Nebbia and Giovanni Guerra. Just outside the Sistine Chapel is the tomb of Gianlorenzo Bernini and his family.
The column in the Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore celebrates the famous icon of the Virgin Mary now enshrined in the Borghese Chapel of the basilica. It is known as Salus Populi Romani, or Health of the Roman People or Salvation of the Roman People, due to a miracle in which the icon reportedly helped keep plague from the city. The icon is at least a thousand years old, and according to a tradition was painted from life by St Luke the Evangelist using the wooden table of the Holy Family in Nazareth.
As a papal basilica, Santa Maria Maggiore is often used by the pope. He presides over the rites for the annual Feast of the Assumption of Mary on 15 August there. Except for a few priests and the basilica's archpriest, the canopied high altar is reserved for use by the pope alone. Pope Francis visited the basilica on the day after his election. The pope gives charge of the basilica to an archpriest, usually a cardinal. Formerly, the archpriest was the titular Latin Patriarch of Antioch, a title abolished in 1964. Since 29 December 2016, the archpriest has been Stanislaw Rylko.
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