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| Salus Populi Romani Protectress and Health of the Roman People | |
|---|---|
 The image as restored by the Vatican Museum in 2018 | |
| Location | Basilica of Saint Mary Major |
| Date | 590 AD (first arrival in Rome) |
| Witness | Pope Gregory I |
| Approval | Pope Gregory XVI Pope Pius XII |
| Shrine | Basilica of Saint Mary Major |
Salus Populi Romani (Protectress, or more literally health or salvation, of the Roman People) is a Catholic title associated with the venerated image of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Rome. This Byzantine icon of the Madonna and Child Jesus holding a Gospel book on a gold ground, now heavily overpainted, is kept in the Borghese (Pauline) Chapel of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major.[1][2] Pope Francis has constructed a burial vault near the icon, intended to be his final resting place.[3]
The image arrived in Rome in 590 A.D. during the reign of Pope St. Gregory I. Pope Gregory XVI granted the image a canonical coronation on 15 August 1838 through the papal bull Cælestis Regina. Pope Pius XII crowned the image again and ordered a public religious procession during the Marian year of 1 November 1954.[4] The image was cleaned and restored by the Vatican Museum, then given a Pontifical Mass on 28 January 2018.
The phrase Salus Populi Romani goes back to the legal system and pagan rituals of the ancient Roman Republic.[5] After the legalisation of Christianity by Emperor Constantine the Great through the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, the phrase was sanctioned as a Marian title for the Blessed Virgin Mary.[6]
- ^ Gerhard Wolf, "Icons and sites" in Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium, Maria Vasilakē, ed.: "the dates proposed by various authors (often in an apodictic way) stretch from the fifth to the thirteenth century"; Wolf gives a bibliography; his date, based on a close examination in 1987 of the icon, a "palimpsest" of restorations of a "Late Antique" icon, is "relatively early": "I have no hesitation in seeing it as part of the group of icons extant by the late sixth or early seventh centuries" pp31-33.
- ^ Relics by Joan Carroll Cruz 1984 ISBN 0-87973-701-8 page 96
- ^ "The pope says he wants to be buried in the Rome basilica, not in the Vatican". AP News. 2023-12-13. Retrieved 2023-12-13.
- ^ "The Queenship of Mary". Time. November 8, 1954. Archived from the original on November 16, 2010. Retrieved May 29, 2018.
- ^ Livy, Book 7: "Nobis deum benignitate, felicitate tua populique Romani, et res et gloria est integra..."
- ^ Gerhard Wolf, "Salus Populi Tomani" in Die Geschicte römische Kultbilder (Weinheim, 1991) pp161-70; J. Linderski, The Augural Law in Hildegard Temporini, Wolfgang Haase, eds. Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren p 2256 (this paper in English)