Saint Mary Major is the only one of the Papal Basilicas to preserve to this day the ancient façade decoration. Before the construction of the Loggia in the eighteenth century, the mosaic was visible open air and, from its outpost, proclaimed the identity of the Shrine: its origins and the Saints serving there. The mosaic covers an area of almost 100 square metres and is divided into two registers. In the upper register, on a curved wall, a “cavetto”, Christ sits on a sumptuous gilded throne, richly adorned with precious stones and gems. The Pantocrator is presented in the centre of a Deesis, the group consisting of Him, His mother and Saint John the Baptist. The Patron Saints of the Basilicas of Saint Mary Major and Saint John Lateran are followed by Saints Peter and Paul, to whom the other main Basilicas in Rome are dedicated. Saint James the Greater (on the left), protector of pilgrims, and Saint Andrew the Apostle (on the right), brother of Peter, close the sequence. The eighteenth-century interventions rendered invisible the two figures at the far sides, Saint Jerome and Saint Matthew the Apostle, of whom only the heads are discernible.
Narrating in four scenes the Miracle of the Snow, or the foundation of the Liberian Basilica, the lower register serves as a huge predella, an entirely original and innovative feature. According to tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared in a dream on the night of 5 August to Pope Liberius and the Roman patrician John. The Virgin asked them to build a Church in her honour, the extent and location of which she would indicate with an unseasonal blanket of snow. The following morning, snow was found on the Esquiline Hill, and the Pope was the first to lay the foundations for the building, which was to be constructed with the patrician's property.
The artist of the mosaic
The artist signs his work in the inscription below the feet of Christ – PHILIPP(VS) RVSVTI FECIT HOC O(P)VS. Filippo Rusuti was one of the most important artists in Rome in the late thirteenth century: not only did he participate in the decoration of the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi, but he was also commissioned, together with his son Giovanni, to become pictor regis, by the King of France, Philip IV the Fair (1285-1314).
The circumstances of the creation of the mosaic have long been the subject of debate. The modern restorations represent the main difficulty in interpreting the whole; in particular, those carried out in the 1820s, under the direction of Vincenzo Camuccini, Inspector of Public Paintings, who made alterations to the lower register, particularly in the first two panels on the left. The upper part, on a gold background, is attributed by some scholars to the period before the fall from grace of Cardinals Giacomo and Pietro Colonna, which occurred in 1297, whereas the lower part would date from after 1306, the year in which Giacomo became the Archpriest of Saint Mary Major once again. Others attribute the entire mosaic to the hand of Filippo Rusuti and his workshop.
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Photo 1: Filippo Rusuti and workshop, The Miracle of the Snow, mosaic, circa 1295
Photo 2: Antonio Tempesta (engraver) / Nicolas van Aelst (print), View of the Façade of the Basilica with medieval mosaic, 1600, engraving © The Trustees of the British Museum
