SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE, Exterior

Hi, my name’s Rick, and I’m your personal guide. Along with MyWoWo, I’d like to welcome you to one of the Wonders of the World: the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

The magnificent Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is located in an area that in Roman times was already occupied by a number of public buildings, and probably Roman baths. The space currently occupied by the church has undergone several changes over the years, starting from the beginning of the 5th century, and the construction of this basilica is but the final stage in a period of intense building activity that included an early Christian church, later replaced by a Romanesque building and then by a Gothic-style edifice.

The building we can see today dates to 1524, and was erected in just four years, on the orders of Bernardo Clesio, the then prince-bishop of Trento who embarked on an ambitious project to modernize the city on Renaissance principles. The design of the basilica was entrusted to an architect from Como, Antonio Medaglia, who took his inspiration for the building from the Basilica of Sant’Andrea in Mantua....