Rome 1300: On the Path of the Pilgrim

Rome 1300: On the Path of the Pilgrim by Herbert L. Kessler. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780300081534.

This book combines history and art history in very readable form. It is through an imagined womans eyes that the authors and the reader see and are affected by the religious sites and rituals of Rome 1300 (e.g., the night-long procession of the icon of Christ from the Lateran to join the icon of Mary at S. Maria Maggiore across the city). The purpose of the book is to present medieval Rome as a living environment, to show how the major churches and the sacred relics, frescoes, icons, and mosaics within them actually served in the Middle Ages to attract the faithful and to confirm and teach belief among the throngs of pilgrims who flocked to the eternal city. The authors not only look back at what pilgrims ventured to see in Rome during the first Jubilee but forward to the Holy Year of 2000, when an estimated 45 million Catholics will retrace the steps of their forebears in search of plenary absolution.