The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is the most likely destinations of Rome's oldest basilica. The Basilica is sometimes referred to as Our Lady of the Snows. The assembly of the early Christians and a cathedral in Rome, where he also created the original architectural features although it was damaged by an earthquake in AD 1348 and renovated several times given.
Santa Maria Maggiore is widely believed to be the
most important church dedicated to Mary in Western
Christendom. In the course of sixteen centuries all the arts have
joined together to glorify this ancient basilica as the house of the
Virgin Mary on earth.
Once past the eighteenth century facade, the visitor to Santa
Maria Maggiore will find himself in a jewel box of art treasures of
every epoch and style. Classical marble columns divide the nave
and side aisles. Byzantine mosaics glitter with gold in the apse,
while smaller gem-colored mosaics from an earlier period wind
their way high above the architrave. The main altar is a blaze of
gilded bronze and porphyry, balanced by the richness of other
materials--marbles, agates and lapis lazuli--used for the various
side altars.