Rome 1300: On the Path of the Pilgrim

This book combines history and art history in very readable form. It is through an imagined woman's 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.

According to Kessler and Zacharias, the Jubilee or Holy Year remains one of the church's most spiritually, politically, and economically consequential traditions. Promising plenary absolution (forgiveness for a lifetime of sins) for all those who journeyed to Rome, Pope Boniface VIII instituted the first Jubilee in 1300. Lured by the pope's unprecedented guarantee of exoneration, more than 200,000 pilgrims flocked to the Eternal City to cleanse their troubled souls. With medieval Rome as a vibrant backdrop, the authors conduct a guided tour of the path taken and the sites visited by a typical pilgrim in 1300. Vivid descriptions and illustrations of churches, sacred relics, precious works of art, and architectural gems are provided; moreover, the spiritual significance of these locations, objects, and buildings is analyzed in depth. A stunning historical blueprint of Rome and its holy sites. Margaret Flanagan
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Colleagues at Johns Hopkins University, Kessler and Zacharias have composed a book, focusing on some of the chief churches in Rome, that has a unique premise: accompanying a woman on her religious pilgrimage through Rome in August 1300, the year Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed the Church's first Year of Jubilee. The authors present scenes of still-standing church buildings and their interiors as they were in 1300, and they have reconstructed scenes of the apostolic basilicas (e.g., St. Peter and St. Paul Outside the Walls), which predate the present churches. Besides thoroughly treating the four patriarchal basilicas, the authors superbly display two very important and sometimes overlooked churches in the city: San Clemente and Santa Prassede. The authors, who are more expert at theology than art, have produced a book well worth taking along to Rome for the millennial Holy Year. The book is recommended for all libraries with an interest in Christian church architecture and art.
-David I. Fulton Coll. of Saint Elizabeth, Morristown, NJ
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.