S.M. “della Neve.”  Our Lady of the Snow.  In Spain, S. Maria la Blanca.  To this legend of the snow the magnificent church of S.M.  Maggiore at Rome is said to owe its origin.  A certain Roman patrician, whose name was John (Giovanni Patricie), being childless, prayed of the Virgin to direct him how best to bestow his worldly wealth.  She appeared to him in a dream on the night of the fifth of August, 352, and commanded him to build a church in her honour, on a spot where snow would be found the next morning.  The same vision having appeared to his wife and the reigning pope, Liberius, they repaired in procession the next morning to the summit of Mount Esquiline, where, notwithstanding the heat of the weather, a large patch of ground was miraculously covered with snow, and on it Liberius traced out with his crosier the plan of the church.  This story has been often represented in art, and is easily recognized; but it is curious that the two most beautiful pictures consecrated to the honour of the Madonna della Neve are Spanish and not Roman, and were painted by Murillo about the time that Philip IV. of Spain sent rich offerings to the church of S.M.  Maggiore, thus giving a kind of popularity to the legend.  The picture represents the patrician John and his wife asleep, and the Vision of the Virgin (one of the loveliest ever painted by Murillo) breaking upon them in splendour through the darkness of the night; while in the dim distance is seen the Esquiline (or what is meant for it) covered with snow.  In the second picture, John and his wife are kneeling before the pope, “a grand old ecclesiastic, like one of Titian’s pontiffs.”  These pictures, after being carried off by the French from the little church of S.M. la Blanca at Seville, are now in the royal gallery at Madrid.

S. Maria “di Loretto.”  Our Lady of Loretto.  The origin of this title is the famous legend of the Santa Casa, the house at Nazareth, which was the birthplace of the Virgin, and the scene of the Annunciation.  During the incursions of the Saracens, the Santa Casa being threatened with profanation, if not destruction, was taken up by the angels and conveyed over land and sea till it was set down on the coast of Dalmatia; but not being safe there, the angels again took it up, and, bearing it over the Adriatic, set it down in a grove near Loretto.  But certain wicked brigands having disturbed its sacred quietude by strife and murder, the house again changed its place, and was at length set down on the spot where it now stands.  The date of this miracle is placed in 1295.

The Madonna di Loretto is usually represented as seated with the divine Child on the roof of a house, which is sustained at the corners by four angels, and thus borne over sea and land.  From the celebrity of Loretto as a place of pilgrimage this representation became popular, and is often found in chapels dedicated to our Lady of Loretto.  Another effigy of our Lady of Loretto is merely a copy of a very old Greek “Virgin and Child,” which is enshrined in the Santa Casa.