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Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore Tour

Discover the 5th century mosaics of Santa Maria Maggiore,a reliquary said to contain a piece of the crib that once held the baby Jesus

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Discover the 5th century mosaics of Santa Maria Maggiore, a reliquary said to contain a piece of the crib that once held the baby Jesus and see the Sistine Chapel named for Pope Sixtus V. Although enlarged and redecorated, the basilica retains much of its original structure of the fifth century. In the years following the return of the papacy to Rome from Avignon, part of the church was used as a papal residence until the complete renovation of the Vatican palace. To admire its mosaics of the fifth century, a reliquary that is said to contain a piece of the crib that once housed the little Jesus, an ancient icon of the Virgin Mary, the tomb of St. Jerome and the tomb of the artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

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