Saint Pilgrim between Myth and History / Places of worship in Europe (Italian)
Sponsored by the International Via Francigena Association, editor Adelaide Trezzini, President.  Introduction by Franco Cardini (a world-renowned expert in pilgrimages and the Crusades): To speak of "pilgrimage to St Pilgrims’ churches" may sound like a joke or a play on words, but it is not. While this description of places of pilgrimage is amusing, it also highlights a problem familiar to specialists on lives of saints: their names are sometimes highly questionable. This study offers the first overview of the cult of the St Pilgrim-Peregrine saints."  It comprises the scientific reconstruction of the great "SAINT PILGRIM" mosaic, which began by chance in Giornico on the francisca-francigena route over the St. Gotthard Pass (Switzerland) and continued to Auxerre and St-Denis before linking up with the Via Francigena - Viterbe, Rome, Troy (Apulia)and finally to Caltabellotta in the south of Sicily. Each element - 16 locations in Europe described by various authors - consists of a sheet highlighting their shared characteristics:

1) the time of foundation, of location on Roman, Lombardy and francigena roads, of transhumance
2) similarity and diversity of dedications to holy hermits of hypothetical French, Greek, Syrian and Scottish provenance, but all called "PILGRIM"

The first part of the volume entitled "From the pilgrimage to the legend of the pilgrim saints" is composed of essays by leading Italian and French medievalists, including Michel Sot and André Vauchez

Appendix: a short biography of the saint Pilgrim, a roman martyr in the second century, perhaps the first of that name (now almost forgotten) and the iconography of seven different Pilgrim saints.

Published in February 2009, format 17x 24 cm, 176 pages in color, with 160 illustrations and photographs, available from
• the International Via Francigena Association (20 / 25 Euro) www.francigena-international.org

• book stores (28 Euro) or online www.gangemieditore.it, ISBN 88-492-1607-6

To order go to:

http://www.francigena-international.org/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=29