Catholic Marian church buildings
A year earlier, Pope Pius XII had proclaimed that title for the Virgin Mary in his 1954 encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam.
[2] The generous and systematic patronage of Roman Emperor Constantine I changed the fortunes of the Christian church, and resulted in both architectural and artistic development.
This church includes the earliest Roman depiction of Santa Maria Regina, portraying the Virgin Mary as a Queen in the 6th century.
[16][17] A good example of the continuation of Marian traditions from the Gothic period to the present day is found at St. Mary's Basilica, Kraków in Poland.
[27] Three Portuguese children, Lúcia dos Santos, Jacinta and Francisco Marto were equally young and without much education when they reported the apparition of Our Lady of Fátima in Cova da Iria, 1917.
After falling from a tree, Pareto changed his mind and built a small wooden room that was eventually enlarged to the present shrine.
The first approval for a Marian apparition in the 21st century was granted to the reported visions of Jesus and Mary by Benoite Rencurel in Saint-Étienne-le-Laus in France from 1664 to 1718.
Again, in this case, a young Benoite Rencurel (who could not read or write) reported that a lady in white appeared to her on a remote mountain top in Saint-Étienne-le-Laus and asked her for a church to be built there.
Reports of unusually radiant, glowing rosary beads were followed by a number of brief visions of Our Lady appearing to housewife and mother-of-two Gladys Motta developed into a series of interior locutions over several years, beginning on October 13 the anniversary of apparitions at Fátima.
Following approval of the spiritual merits by local religious authorities, a new church dedicated to Marian devotion under this title was erected as requested by Our Lady during the apparitions.
For instance, the Borghese or Pauline Chapel of the Santa Maria Maggiore church houses Salus Populi Romani, which has historically been the most important Catholic Marian art icon in Rome.
In 1954, the icon was crowned by Pius XII as he introduced a new Marian feast Queenship of Mary with the encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam.
Perhaps the ultimate example of this interplay is on Tepeyac hill, in Mexico, the site of the reported apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin.
The distinctive colonnaded gallery that surrounds it and its imposing triple-aisled vaulted design influenced the development of Romanesque architecture in the 11th and 12th centuries.
This early period, also included growth and development in other aspects of Mariology, with activities by key figures such as John Damascene and Bernard of Clairvaux.
Its sculptures and stained glass show the heavy influence of naturalism, giving them a more secular look that was lacking from earlier Romanesque architecture.
Further south, the façade of Santa Maria Assunta Cathedral in Siena Italy is an excellent example of Tuscan Gothic architecture by Giovanni Pisano.
Pope Clement IV (1265–1268) created a poem on the seven joys of Mary, which in its form is considered an early version of the Franciscan rosary.
Perhaps the key example of early Renaissance Quattrocento Marian architecture is the Dome of Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy.
The Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Milan), famous for the mural of the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci is an example of the progression of architecture beyond the Gothic period and towards the Renaissance.
This period also saw unprecedented growth in venerative Marian art with the likes of Donatello, Sandro Botticelli, Masaccio, Filippo Lippi, Piero di Cosimo and Paolo Uccello among many others.
The Santa Maria della Pace's Baroque façade, designed by Pietro da Cortona is a good example of a Marian church in Rome that progressed beyond the Renaissance.
Baroque literature on Mary experienced unforeseen growth with over 500 pages of Mariological writings during the 17th century alone with contributors such as Francisco Suárez, Lawrence of Brindisi, Robert Bellarmine and Francis of Sales[33] After 1650, the Immaculate Conception was the subject of over 300 publications.
In this period Saint Louis de Montfort wrote his highly influential Marian books that influenced several popes centuries later.
[35] From 1974 to 1976, a new Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Tepeyac hill, north of Mexico City, was built next to the 1709 church which was no longer safe due to weakened foundations.
More recently, Pope John Paul II's encyclical Redemptoris Mater took the step of addressing the role of the Virgin Mary as Mediatrix.
It houses an historical statue of Our Lady identified by private revelations to a lay woman of the diocese that occurred over a number of years, and were documented in a book by Fr.
