Santa Maria Maggiore, the basilica where Pope Francis lies

Plenty of people come to Santa Maria Maggiore looking for just one thing, Pope Francis’s tomb. I understand why, but it seems a shame to stop there. It’s the only one of Rome’s great basilicas to keep its early Christian form, it holds the city’s most venerated icon and it has a Sistine Chapel of its own. It belongs to the Holy See, yet it isn’t in the Vatican at all.

Where is Pope Francis buried?

It’s in the aisle on your left as you enter, in the stretch between the Pauline and Sforza chapels, near the altar of St Francis of Assisi. The burial took place on 26 April 2025, a half-hour rite led by the Cardinal Camerlengo. The tomb is as plain as he asked. A slab of Ligurian stone engraved FRANCISCVS, a floor of Finale Ligure stone honouring his family’s roots and, on the niche wall, the pectoral cross he wore every day, reproduced at a larger size.

The choice makes sense the moment you step into the Pauline Chapel. That’s where the Salus Populi Romani hangs, the icon Francis went to pray before and after every trip abroad. On 21 April 2026, the first anniversary of his death, a plaque was unveiled to the right of the chapel recording his 126 visits. If you’re wondering where the other recent popes lie, it’s all in where the popes are buried.

A papal basilica outside the Vatican

This is the mix-up I come across most. Santa Maria Maggiore is one of Rome’s four papal basilicas and has been Holy See property since the Lateran Treaty of 1929. The same treaty gives it the immunities international law grants to embassies. Yet the text is explicit that it forms part of Italian state territory.

In practice, you cross no border and never leave Rome when you walk in. I explain the distinction in what the Holy See is, as opposed to Vatican City. That’s how Francis can lie in a papal basilica and still be the first pope in more than a hundred years whose grave sits outside the Vatican state.

What I’d see inside

The first thing I’d do is look up the central nave. The cipollino marble columns, the fifth-century mosaics from the pontificate of Sixtus III and the gilded wooden ceiling designed by Giuliano and Antonio da Sangallo give you the ancient basilica almost untouched. Turismo Roma passes on the tradition that the ceiling was gilded with the first gold brought back from the Americas, a gift from Isabella of Spain, and I prefer that story to any statistic.

Then I’d head for the two great side chapels. Paul V’s Pauline Chapel keeps the Salus Populi Romani in a lapis lazuli tabernacle, and in its dome Cigoli painted the Virgin standing on a cratered moon, following the observations Galileo had just published in 1610. Opposite, the Sistine Chapel Sixtus V commissioned from Domenico Fontana between 1585 and 1587 holds his tomb and St Pius V’s, and it sits over the oratory with the nativity Arnolfo di Cambio carved in 1291, the first known in the history of art.

That leaves three short stops. Under the papal altar, the Holy Crib, slats from the Bethlehem manger in a reliquary by Valadier. In the right aisle, the Bernini family tomb, astonishingly modest for the man who filled Rome with marble. And the Sforza Chapel, designed by Michelangelo at the age of 87.

What’s free and what you pay for

Entering the basilica costs nothing. What you pay for is the museum complex, with the Loggia of Blessings, the Hall of the Popes, Bernini’s staircase and the Liberian Museum, at €7.50. For me it’s the extra most worth having, because the loggia puts you face to face with the façade mosaics. The Underground Experience, €13.50, is for anyone who has already seen the basilica and wants to go below, and the art historian’s tour, €16.50, for those who’d rather be talked through it.

The museum complex opens Monday to Saturday from 8:00 to 18:30, last entry 18:00, and on Sundays from 12:30 to 17:00. All the prices and times are in the tables on this page.

Rules, clothing and access

The basilica asks for modest dress, no strappy or low-cut tops, no shorts above the knee, no miniskirts and no hats. It’s very close to the Vatican’s own rule, which I’ve set out in the Vatican dress code. There’s no cloakroom and suitcases or large rucksacks aren’t allowed in, so if you’re coming from the station with luggage, drop it first. There’s a metal detector at the entrance.

For wheelchair users there’s a ramp, adapted toilets and mobile platforms to reach the chapels, which you ask the staff for, and the museum complex has a lift.

When to go

My favourite day would be 5 August, when the basilica marks the miraculous snowfall of its founding legend with a shower of white petals from the ceiling during Mass. The rest of the year I’d go early, around the first Mass, when there are more worshippers than tourists. Christmas carries special weight here too, because this is where Midnight Mass was celebrated for the first time, which ties in with Christmas at the Vatican.

Its Holy Door, on the left of the portico, opened on 1 January 2025 and closed on 25 December that year, ahead of St Peter’s. The story of all four is in the Holy Door of St Peter’s. And if you cross the Tiber later the same day, Castel Sant’Angelo is the best end to an afternoon I know on that bank.