Salus Populi Romani

 Salus Populi Romani (Protectress, or more literally the health or salvation, of the Roman People) is a Roman Catholic title associated with the venerated image of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Rome. This Byzantine icon of the Madonna and Christ Child holding a Gospel book on a gold ground, now heavily overpainted, is kept in the Borghese (Pauline) Chapel of the Basilica of St Mary Major.

The image arrived in Rome in the year 590 AD during the reign of Pope Gregory I. Pope Gregory XVI granted the image a Canonical Coronation on August 15, 1838 through a papal bull Cælestis Regina. Pope Pius XII crowned the image again and ordered a public religious procession during the Marian year of November 1, 1954. The image was cleaned and restored by the Vatican Museum on January 28, 2018.

The phrase Salus Populi Romani goes back to the legal system and pagan rituals of the ancient Roman Republic. After the legalization 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.

The image is held to have arrived from Crete in the year 590 AD during the pontificate of Pope Gregory the Great, who welcomed the image in person on its arrival borne with a floral boat from the Tiber river. For centuries it was placed above the door to the baptistery chapel of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (considered the third of the Roman patriarchal basilicas) where in the year 1240 it began to be called Regina Cæli (English: "Queen of Heaven") in an official document. Later it was moved to the nave, and from the 13th century it was preserved in a marble tabernacle. Since 1613 it has been located in the altar tabernacle of the Cappella Paolina that was built specifically for it, later known to English-speaking pilgrims as the Lady Chapel. The church and its Marian shrine are under the special patronage of the popes.

From at least the 15th century, it was honored as a miraculous image, and it was later used by the Jesuit order in particular to foster devotion to the Mother of God through the Sodality of Our Lady movement.

The image is one of the so-called "Luke images" believed to have been painted from real life by St Luke himself. According to the legend:

After the Crucifixion, when Our Lady moved to the home of St John the Apostle, she took with her a few personal belongings - among which was a table built by the Redeemer in the workshop of St Joseph. When pious virgins of Jerusalem prevailed upon St Luke to paint a portrait of the Mother of God, it was the top of this table that was used to memorialize her image. While applying his brush and paints, St Luke listened carefully as the Mother of Jesus spoke of the life of her son, facts which the Evangelist later recorded in his Gospel. Legend also tells us that the painting remained in and around Jerusalem until it was discovered by St Helena in the 4th century. Together with other sacred relics, the painting was transported to Constantinopole where her son, Emperor Constantine the Great, erected a church for its enthronement.

The Roman Breviary states, "After the Council of Ephesus (431) in which the Mother of Jesus was acclaimed the Mother of God, Pope Sixtus III erected at Rome on the Esquiline Hill, a basilica dedicated to the honor of the Holy Mother of God. It was afterward called St Mary Major and it is the oldest church in the West dedicated to the honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary."

The Roman Pontifical gives the following account:

The Liberian basilica, today called Saint Mary Major, was founded by Pope Liberius (352 - 366) and was restored and enlarged by Sixtus III. ... Pope Liberius selected a venerated picture that hung in the pontifical oratory. It had allegedly been brought to Rome by Saint Helena...

The image is five feet high by three and a quarter feet wide (117 x 79 cm) - very large for an icon, especially one with an early date. It is painted on a thick cedar panel. Mary wears a gold-trimmed, dark blue mantle over a purple/red tunic. The letters in Greek at the top identify Mary as "Mother of God," as is usual in Byzantine art (Christ may originally have had an incription under later re-painting). Christ is holding a book in his left hand, presumably a Gospel Book. His right hand is raised in a blessing, and it is Mary not he who looks directly out at the viewer.

The folded together position of Mary's hands distinguishes this image as a version of the early type from before the development of the iconography of the Hodegetria image in the 10th century, where she points to Christ with her right hand. "Rather than offering the Child, she keeps his body closer to hers and seeks physical and tactile comment with him." However the few other examples of this type do not have the Virgin's hands folded together - the right hand holds Christ's knees.

The Virgin holding in her right hand a mappa (or mappula, a sort of embroidered ceremonial handkerchief), originally a consular symbol, later an imperial one, which means that this image is probably one of the type showing Mary as Regina Cæli or "Queen of Heaven." In addition, the Virgin wears a plain, golden, ring band in her middle finger of her right hand, later obscured by a gemstone. The image no longer wears its Canonical crowns and jewelled regalia (as part of the restoration efforts of the ancient image), which has now been transferred in the treasury of the sacristy of Saint Peter's Basilica.

x---------x

The post is sponsored by The Body Shop UK.