The Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome will begin the restoration of the Pauline Chapel, which houses the icon of the Salus Populi Romani, on November 16.
According to Vatican News on November 6, the intervention will last approximately eighteen months and is jointly promoted by the basilica itself and the Governorate of Vatican City State, which describes it as “one of the most significant restoration works” of the church.
The work will focus on the upper register of the chapel, from the entablament to the dome, and will include the frescoes and stucco decorations of the vaults, lunettes, pendentives, and the dome itself.
The frescoes and wooden furnishings of the chapel sacristy will also be restored, as well as “The Immaculate Conception,” the so-called “Galilean Madonna” by Cigoli.
Frescoes from 1610 to 1612 by Reni, Cigoli, Baglione and the Cavalier d’Arpino
The decoration now being restored was executed between 1610 and 1612 by Giovanni Baglione, Lodovico Cardi, known as Cigoli, Guido Reni, and Giuseppe Cesari, the Cavalier d’Arpino.
It is one of the most important pictorial ensembles of seventeenth-century Rome, conceived for a chapel that has since become one of the city’s principal centers of Marian devotion.
A copy of the icon and Masses in the Sistine Chapel
The basilica has planned a preliminary phase of about ninety days, dedicated to diagnostic and photographic surveys, during which the chapel will remain closed to the public.
During this period, according to Vatican News, “near the Chapel, a copy of the Icon will be placed for veneration.”
Once this first phase is completed, a “state-of-the-art” suspended scaffold will be installed, specifically designed to carry out the restoration operations without interfering with the use of the chapel and to ensure the continuity of the faithful’s devotion.
While the work is underway, daily Masses will be celebrated in the Sistine Chapel of the basilica, at the usual times: 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, and 18:00.
The Pauline Chapel, named after Pope Paul V, who promoted it, houses the icon of the Salus Populi Romani, the most venerated Marian image in Rome, to which the popes go to pray before and after their apostolic journeys.