Sometime in the 1420s, the Italian painters commonly known as Masolino (“Little Thomas”; 1383-1440/7) and Masaccio (“Bad Thomas”; 1401-28) made an altarpiece for the basilica of St Mary Major in Rome, the dedication of which is celebrated today. The precise circumstances of the commission are uncertain. Many scholars believe that it was originally assigned to Masaccio, who worked on it in the first half of 1428, completing most of the large panels of both sides, but died in June of that year; Masolino would then have been asked to finish the work of his former student. Others believe it was commissioned by Pope Martin V Colonna, whose family had long been associated with the basilica, as part of his preparations for the Jubilee which he held in the year 1423. (The regular 25-year cycle of Jubilees had not yet been permanently fixed.)
Each year, during the principal Mass of the Dedication, a shower of white jasmine petals, representing the miraculous snowfall, is let fall from the roof of the basilica during the Gloria; the ceremony is repeated in the evening during the Magnificat of Vespers. It is seen here in a video taken by John Sonnen of Orbis Catholicus in 2010.
By the mid-17th century, when the piece had long been out of style, it had been removed to the Roman palace of the Farnese family, and cut into pieces, so that all six of the main panels would be visible together; it was also at that point attributed to Fra Angelico, (most improbably, given the radical difference between his style and that of the two Thomases.) The sections were subsequently dispersed, and are now in three different museums: the larger central panels, which depict the foundation of St Mary Major and the Assumption, are in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples; the panels of Ss Jerome and John the Baptist and of Ss Gregory and Matthias are in the National Gallery in London; and those of Ss John the Evangelist and Martin and of Ss Peter and Paul are in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Two other panels which may have been part of the altarpiece (but this is also uncertain) are in the Painting Gallery of the Vatican Museums: a Crucifixion scene which would have stood as a cuspid on top of the center, and an image of the Dormition of the Virgin, which would have been part of the predella.
The central panel of the recto side shows the traditional legend of the foundation of the basilica. In the mid-4th century, a wealthy couple named John and Mary, having no heirs, determined to dedicate their fortune to some pious work, and prayed to the Virgin to let them know what She would like them to do. That night, August 5th, she appeared to them both, and also to Pope Liberius, and told them that in the morning, they would find a part of the Esquiline Hill covered in snow, and in that spot, they should build a church in Her honor. (Snowfalls are exceedingly rare in Rome even in the winter.) Pope Liberius traces out the plan of the basilica in the snow with a hoe, as John and Mary look on from the side. (The painter has reversed the traditional color scheme by which Christ is usually dressed in red over blue, and Mary in blue over red.)
Neither Masolino nor Masaccio was a native Florentine; Masolino was born in a small town in Umbria called Panicale, about 18 miles west of Perugia, and Masaccio in a town about 24 miles to the south and east of Florence called San Giovanni Valdarno. Nevertheless, they both exemplify the style which predominated in Florence in the 15th century, and exercised a tremendous influence elsewhere. This style leaned strongly away from the richly decorative tradition known as the International Gothic which had prevailed in the 14th century, especially in Florence’s great rival Siena, , and laid much greater emphasis on perspective and the solidity of the figures. This panel, which was originally placed to the left of the panel above, shows Ss Jerome and John the Baptist. The former is included here because of the tradition that his relics were taken from Bethlehem, where he died, to Rome, and laid in the basilica of Mary Major. (If this tradition is true, they were subsequently lost, possibly when the basilica was badly damaged in the Sack of Rome in 1527.)
Ss Peter and Paul, patron Saints and founding Apostles of the church of Rome.
The panel of the Crucifixion which would have stood as the cuspid in the original arrangement.
The Dormition of the Virgin, part of the predella.
