Thursday, May 27, 2010


Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome.

According to the founding legend, which cannot be traced further back than the thirteenth century,the pope wanted a shrine built at the site where an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in identical dreams shared by a local patrician Giovanni Patrizio and his wife and by the pope. According to tradition, the outline of the church was physically laid out on the ground of the nobleman's property by Liberius himself under a miraculous but predicted snowfall that took place on the night of 4–5 August 352 (or 358).

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