HISTORY
Early pilgrimage guidebooks provide essential information about the place and time of the written subject matter. One of the chief benefits of analyzing guidebooks is discovering valuable clues about the urban context and cultural attitudes of the day, as well as reconstructing how people might have moved through the city and what they identified as significant points of interest.
Itinerarium Urbis Romae
The author of this guidebook, Fra Mariano da Firenze, described a particularly innovative vision of Rome for his day. He synthesized information from ancient, medieval, and contemporary (early 16th century) sources. His descriptions of the itineraries through Rome described almost everything along the journey.
On the Pilgrimage You’ll Find...
4 aqueducts
18 arches
190 churches
8 piazze
5 hospitals
19 palazzi
15 bridges
34 city gates
3 theatres
4 libraries
49 temples
15 Roman baths
In addition, he incorporated religious myths, traditions, and legends about saints, icons, or ancient Roman figures, as well as descriptions of the relics, indulgences, tombs, and chapels that one can find at the numerous churches discussed.
Why This Guidebook?
Compared to published guidebooks of his day, including Francesco Albertini’s Opusculum de Mirabilibus or the anonymously-written 12th-century work, Mirabilia Urbis Romae (and one may also compare to Andrea Palladio’s two guidebooks to Rome, those these were published much later in 1554), Fra Mariano’s guidebook was remarkably comprehensive It might even be speculated he was attempting to systemize Rome’s pilgrimage routes into a practical, precisely written itinerary.