La Via Francigena - introduction

The Via Francigena is an ancient road to Rome for those coming from France.

At the beginning of the second millennium, a huge number of pilgrims began crossing through Europe in search of the lost “Celestial Land”, the “Patria Celeste.” The pilgrims travelled to three major destinations: Rome, the city of the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul, the founders of the Christian church; The Holy Land, site of Calvary, where the pilgrims sought out the places of Christ’s Passion; Santiago de Compostela, the furthest point of western Europe which the Holy Apostle James chose as his final resting place.

Thus Europe became a vast web of roads, paths and routes all of which led towards these pilgrimage sites.

The way to Rome was along what was probably the most important road of the times, the Via Francigena or Via Romea which led to the Eternal City from the Western Alps and the Rhineland and was used for seven centuries by sovereigns, emperors, plebeians and clergymen.

The Via Francigena led all the way from Canterbury to Rome and was one of the pathways of European history.

It was a main thoroughfare along which hundreds of thousands of pilgrims passed on their way to Rome.

In those days, the journey was not just an adventure or a risk but an act of devotion in itself, and the pilgrims would stop off along the way at places deemed holy by the Church.

We are able to reconstruct the itinerary thanks to a document left behind by Archbishop Sigericus of Canterbury who, upon his return from Rome to his dioceses in 994, wrote down the names of the places that had formed the stages of his journey home.

It is only natural that one thousand years later, on the eve of a new millennium, there should be a reawakening of interest in the old route and a desire to rediscover a road that once represented unity and communication between the different cultures and ideas of European nations which are once again opening their borders.

The Via Francigena bears witness to how even then there was a desire for unity in Europe.

The Via Francigena cut through the Alps in the Valley of Aosta and proceeded southwards through Piedmont, Lombardy, the flatlands of the river Po (Padania) before going through the Apennines near Berceto to pass into Tuscany and Latium, and then Rome.

This route is an essential and formative phenomenon in the history of Europe.

Fragments, signs and reminders of its existence are still to be found scattered throughout our area.

It was an important medieval road and pilgrimage route connecting north-Western Europe with Rome and the harbours to Jerusalem in Apulia (Bari, Brindisi, Otranto).