medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Yesterday (5. August) was also the feast day of:
The Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major (Santa Maria Maggiore)
in Rome (ca. 435). In 431 the Council of Ephesus in the course of its
condemnation of Nestorianism asserted the BVM's role as Theotokos
('Mother of God'). Her newly enunciated position of prominence was
underscored shortly thereafter by pope St. Sixtus III (432-40), who
built and dedicated to Mary the Roman basilica now known as Santa Maria
Maggiore. Since at least the time of Francesco Maria Fiorentini's
_Vetustius occidentalis Eclesiae martyrologium_ (1668), this has been
considered the first church in the West to be dedicated to Mary.
The feast itself is already in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology as
occurring on 5. August, with an entry, probably deriving from this
composite work's late antique Italian core, that reads as follows:
_Romae dedicatio basilicae sanctae Mariae_. Santa Maria Maggiore was
either a replacement for or a rebuilding of an earlier basilica erected
on the same spot by pope Liberius (352-66). In later legend it was
claimed that Mary had appeared to Liberius and to others in a dream on
the night of 4./5. August saying that she would mark out in snow the
outline of a space where a church should be built in her honor. On the
following day the outline was discovered on the Esquiline and here
Liberius built his basilica, which in this account was then already
dedicated to the BVM close to a century before Sixtus' creation of Santa
Maria Maggiore. The latter did come to be called Santa Maria ad Nives
('Our Lady of the Snows') and in the Roman Calendar from 1568 until its
revision of 1969 the feast was called this as well.
Modified several times over the centuries, Rome's Santa Maria Maggiore
retains much of its original basilican form and indeed some of its late
antique decoration. For an English-language discussion of what's new
and what's not, see:
http://roma.katolsk.no/mariamaggiore.htm
A page of expandable views is here:
http://tinyurl.com/eu9kk
In this view of the interior, note the columns, capitals, and the mosaic
panels above them (these are all early):
http://tinyurl.com/jtdr5
Another view, showing the triumphal arch as well (and a bit of the apse
mosaic):
http://tinyurl.com/cw2w8
Further back:
http://www.fabbnet.net/italy2004/Rome/Sta%20Maria%20Maggiore.jpg
http://www.fabbnet.net/italy2004/Rome/Sta%20Maria%20Maggiore%202.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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