Italian Renaissance Paintings of UFO’s Hidden in Plain Sight
One day in early August in the fourth century AD, something strange happened in Rome. Those who were outside braving the heat, walking on the Esquiline Hill would have glanced at the sky to notice a curious cloud formation - very different certainly from the compact cloud cover typical of snowfall - and would have been astonished to see snowflakes drifting down to earth – in the heat of summer! Some may have fled to escape this manifestation of divine wrath while others may have tentatively stretched out a hand to catch them and see them evaporate like real snowflakes. Someone noted and recorded the event.
The Miracle of the Snow by Masolino da Panicale. Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary observe Pope Liberius, who marks in the legendary snowfall the outline of the basilica by Masolino da Panicale (Public Domain)
Nine centuries later Bartolomeo da Trento in his 13th-century Liber epilogorum in gesta sanctorum wrote that when the event of the miraculous summer snowfall had occurred in the fourth century, Pope Liberius traced the perimeters for the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in the snow on the ground. Two centuries thereafter someone read in the ancient chronicle of Fra’ Bartolomeo from Trento, a description of this strange event and commissioned the artist Masolino da Panicale to paint the Tryptych of the Madonna della Neve.
