Salus Populi Romani: Protectress of the Roman People.
The Eternal City, the heart of Western Christianity with its great basilicas and shrines, speaks of the triumph of Christianity in its visual language in multiple ways. One of the dearest forms of devotion and personal piety is however at the heart of Saint Mary Major, the great papal basilica dedicated to the Mother of God, amidst the glowing marbles of antiquity, the stunning Medieval mosaics and the gilded surfaces of the Renaissance and Baroque, in perhaps its most grandiose chapel, the Borghese, is a tiny little icon. The Salus Populi Romani is one of the most revered Marian iconographies in Catholicism. This intimate connection between the divine and the Christian has inspired Romans since the times of the early Church, from popes to everyday people, as a symbol of protection over our own very city, she not only represents Mary in its centrality within Catholic doctrine and sensibility but also the very spiritual chore of the heart of the Romans. The title itself finds its origi...
