Marian devotion as Bishop
It is an ancient devotion, built gradually. Does not originate from apparitions or miraculous events, even if they reported someone happened not many years ago. Certainly, from remote times, the high altar was dedicated to Our Lady. We know that already in 782, during a dispute between Pope Adrian I and the Emperor Charlemagne, in front of the ambassadors of the latter, "the elders and notables of the place testified under oath on the altar inside the Church of the Holy Mother God's Mary in town Foronovo that Sabina was the patrimony of the Holy See. In altar frescoes dating from the century. IX, the Madonna appears in place of honor. In sec. X, the whole Church is dedicated to Our Lady and is referred to as "S. Mary Episcopo. "So said the Pope's Bull of 944 Marine II, having certain boundaries, grants to John Bishop of the Diocese and Bishops Sabinense" qui est honorary S.ctae Genitricis Mariae Dei quae est in Foronovo " . In sec. XII, papal documents bearing the title "Sanctae Mariae Antiquae." Since the Church of Bishop is the most important of those dedicated to the Madonna in Sabina, is also called "St. Maria Maggiore in Sabina. "In the same classroom walls of the Church, we included two images of the Madonna, breaking the regularity of the frescoes Cavalliniani, suggest that these were existing. The main panel depicts the Madonna is plaster on wood colored. In 1611 there was a picture described as "an Egyptian-style icons painted on wood"

The present is certainly not the original, although it is rebuilt on the existing model and it has been poorly retouched, not many years ago by hand inexperienced and presumptuous. The Virgin and Child, actually blessing the use Latin, reveal that we are out of Byzantine art, while remaining of this influence in a few more faces. The inscription, taken from the Bible, which reads the book, which the infant Jesus holding open in his hands, "former hours infantium et lactentium perfecisti Laudem" (thou, O Lord, have received praise from the lips of children and infants ), prompts us to invoke under the title "Our Lady of Praise," almost to remember Jesus' invitation to us as little children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.