Santa Maria Maggiore, the artists Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini rest in the side aisle of the Basilica

Pope Francis used to come to pray at St. Mary Major, to give thanks and homage to the Virgin in the Icon of the Salus populi romani every time he returned from a journey, from a mission. This is where he went when, to the general surprise, he was elected Pope. And here he is buried. Now his coffin dwells in the bare 'earth' as he had requested, covered by a plaque of Ligurian stone, the land of some of his ancestors. It is located in the left aisle, between the Pauline Chapel and the Sforza Chapel.

The inscription is extremely simple, Franciscus, in Latin. Above, in bas-relief, is a stone reproduction of his pectoral cross, the very one with which he immediately distinguished himself, as soon as he showed himself to the world from the Loggia of St Peter's following his election. Not a golden cross, like that of so many of his brethren, which he had refused when he donned the white robe of a Pope. But an iron cross, the one he already had as a bishop, one of the very first symbols from which the people of the faithful sensed that great changes were coming. In this Basilica, founded in the 5th century, there are other 'excellent' burials of Popes but also of famous artists such as Peter and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

There are in fact seven popes' tombs already present in the Basilica located in Rome's Piazza dell'Esquilino: Pope Honorius III (pontificate 1216-1227), Pope Nicholas IV (1288-1292), Pope Pius V (1566-1572), Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590), Pope Clement VIII (1592-1605), Pope Paul V (1605-1621), Pope Clement IX (1667-1669). And now there is the tomb of Pope Francis (pontificate 2013-2025).

Members of Roman noble families, cardinals and artists also rest in Santa Maria Maggiore. Of these, the tomb of the Bernini family, in the right side aisle, certainly stands out: on the floor one can see the tomb slab where both Gian Lorenzo and his father Pietro are buried, and a simple Latin epigraph expressing the hope for the resurrection of both, who had their workshop behind the Pauline Chapel. The inscription 'Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Decus artium et urbis hic humiliter quiescit" ("Glory of the arts and the city, here humbly rests") is engraved on the simple tomb slab. And further below the inscription 'Nobilis familia Bernini. Hic resurrectionem expectat' ('Noble Bernini family awaiting resurrection'). Both the relief of the Assumption in the Baptistery and the sculptures in the Pauline Chapel (both works by Pietro) as well as the bronze depicting Philip IV under the Portico (executed to a design by Gian Lorenzo) refer to Bernini's artistic activity at Santa Maria Maggiore.