The church of St. Mary Major in Rome was built, according to the tradition, after the apparition of the Madonna in dream to Pope Liberio.
The night between August 4th and 5th 352 after Christ the Pontiff would have dreamed that the Mother of Christ invited him to build a Basilica where on the next day he would have found the snow, and it was on this place that in full summer miraculously it snowed. For this, since the era of its foundation, the Basilica of St.Mary Major is also called “Basilica Liberiana” or “Santa Maria della Neve” (Santa Maria of the Snow). The structure is the central point of a larger urban project wanted by Pope Sisto V, who desired to connect the main basilicas through some rectilinear streets. This basilica is externally characterized by the façade, emerging between two civil palaces, due to the projects of F. Fuga of 1743 and for the Roman belfry of 1375 after Christ, which with its roughly 75 metres is also the highest of all Rome.
The basilica of St.Mary Major is developed on three bays, divided by columns with ionic column capitals for a length of more than 85 metres up to the apse reworked by Pope Nicolò IV between 1288 and 1292. The internal furnishing is made of louvered strip waffle slab ceilings of Giuliano da Sangallo and a series of mosaics which, along the central bay and on the triumphal arch look like they are original from the 5th century after Christ, while they are commonly attributed to the work of 1295 after Christ of Jacopo Torriti.