From Canterbury to Rome, this is the route that millions of Christian pilgrims have travelled since the Middle Ages. For centuries, the people of all Europe have met in peace along this road, recognising in each other fellow members of a unique culture. Because the Via Francigena was, in a sense, the birthplace of European unity, in 1994, the Council of Europe recognised it as a “European Cultural Itinerary.” Today, international tourists are again discovering the villages and cities that lie on this ancient way.

In the Middle Ages, travelling was so difficult that before embarking on their journey, pilgrims made their wills. But despite the hardships, the traffic grew to such an extent that, used to the ease and convenience of modern transport, we citizens of the third millennium never cease to be amazed at the mobility of medieval man.

Passing from Tuscany, Proceno was the first village that pilgrims encountered in the Papal States. The Via Francigena is a route dense with history, a true backbone of Europe, from which grew the Romanesque style, works of literature such as the Chansons de Geste, and legends such as those of Charlemagne and his paladins. Along the route there arose sanctuaries and oratories dedicated to the patron saints of the road: St. James, St. Christopher, the archangel Michael, St. Donnino, and St. Rocco. And astonishing miracles occurred, such as the one in Bolsena that gave the church its festival of Corpus Domini. There, in the shrine of the martyred St. Cristina, Christ’s blood dripping from the consecrated host onto the corporal, the small cloth beneath the chalice, and thus affirming the doctrine of transubstantiation brought a doubting priest, a pilgrim on his way to Rome, back to the faith.

For many, like the doubting priest, the journey along this road was and continues to be an existential experience, a journey of the soul.