Via Francigena

The via Francigena is not a single road, but a collection of several possible routes that changed over the centuries as trade and the pilgrimage culture developed and waned. Depending on the time of year, political situation, and relative popularity of the shrines of saints along the route, travellers may have used any of three or four crossings over the Alps and the Apennines.

First documented as the Lombard Way and later the Iter Francorum, the via Francigena was only mentioned as such in the Actum Clusi, a parchment produced in 876 in the Abbey of San Salvatore al Monte Amiata (Tuscany).

It seems that it was first in England in the 7th century that it became accepted that no archbishop could exercise his authority over his jurisdiction until he had received a pallium from Rome, a practice that was soon widely accepted in the western church. At the end of the 10th century, Sigeric the Serious, Archbishop of Canterbury, used the via Francigena to travel to Rome (or more certainly to return from Rome) where he received his pallium from the Pope. He recorded his return journey, and the places where he stopped, in a document which is now held in the British Library, but nothing in it suggests that the route was new. His itinerary lists the seventy-nine submansiones, which define the via Francigena as we know it today.

Archbishop Sigeric’s Pilgrimage to Rome in 990 – Veronica Ortenberg

St Thierry, known as William of St Thierry, used the roads towards Rome on several occasions at the end of the 11th century. Other itineraries include those of the Icelandic traveller Nikolás Bergsson in 1154 and Philip Augustus of France, who entered Italy via Moncenisio in 1191. Subsequent accounts also cite the pass over Montgenévre and through the Susa Valley as a route used by both pilgrims travelling to Rome (along what is now recognised as a branch of the via Francigena) and armies invading Italy. In the 12th century the increase in commercial relations between Italy and the Germanic areas led to a renewed use of the passes in the central and eastern Alps, like the St Gotthard and Brenner passes. Nevertheless, the via Francigena route described by Sigeric was still in frequent use, as evidenced in the journey of Barthelemy Bonis, a merchant of Montauban,who took part in the Jubilee of 1350, having survived the plague of 1348. Other documents also recordCharles VIII’s journey along the Via Francigena in 1494, as part of his armed descent on Naples.

The via Francigena facilitated all forms of exchange between communities, one of the clearest examples being in art and culture. How else can we explain the presence of an 8th century Scotic-Irish relic in the monastery of San Salvatore L’Amiata, or the vestment made from traditional Persiansamite (a luxurious and heavy silk fabric often including gold or silver thread) dating back to the Carolingian age? Or the Codex Amiatinus, an 8th century English Bible and the Vercelli Book, left there by a Scotic pilgrim in the 6th century.

Similarly, architects and builders were clearly open to the external influences brought in by the via Francigena. Tightly woven exchanges can be seen between the Lombard Romanesque style, or more generically that of the Po region and France. A prime example of this can be found in the work of Nicolao, a sculptor who between 1120 and 1140 was working on the abbey of San Michele della Chiusa in Piacenza obviously inspired by the Wiligelmic tradition, but also by the art of the Aquitaine. In Tuscany, where French architectural styles are evident in buildings both along and near the via Francigena, the abbey church of Sant’Antimo is the only one to have a basilica plan, complete with the aisle and side chapels typical of the great pilgrimage churches in France and Santiago de Compostela.

This 1988 paper by Paul von Caucci Saucken provides more information on the relationship between the via Francigena and routes to Santiago