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The actual view in Rome is overpowered by the relic of the antiquity. The Renaissance and Baroque buildings, the many buildings following the unity of Italy, the hundreds of testimonies of Middle Ages as, towers, houses, churches and bell tower, rests of ancient castles. |
For the whole Middle Ages there wasn’t an only city comparable to Rome for the quantity and quality of the possessed monuments and for the number of visitors that came, desirous to visit the most important centers of the Christianity but also attracted by the charm of the ancient pagan relics. The requests of indications to move in the city, brought to the compilation of the first guides for pilgrims, from which sprang in the XII century an original literary product, the Mirabilia urbis Romae, that had innumerable versions in the three following centuries. |
In the Middle Ages the Francigena Road was one of the principal streets of pilgrimage toward Rome. Already the Longobardi in the VII century used this road, but with the time its function was clearly definited as, the way of communication betwenn center-western Europe and the center of the Christianity, Rome, and continuing to south with Jerusalem. |
It has had great importance in the development of the culture in the European society, like the “Camino de Santiago” because it allowed the various populations of the continent to come and to exchange experiences, habits and emotions. The pilgrimage toward Rome, as that to the Holy Land, was spontaneous, dictated by intimate motivations and tied to the mind of being real Christian in the Middle Ages: in Rome there was the Pope, there was the Basilica of Saint Peter, there was the mystical atmosphere of the holy place, there were the relics and the testimonies of the sufferings of the first Christians; in short all the ingredients to satisfy the need of spirituality and redemption of the Christian frightened by the judgment of God. |
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