Iscriviti alla newsletter!
Iscriviti ora per ricevere ogni mese aggiornamenti esclusivi,
consigli di viaggio, storie emozionanti e tanto altro direttamente
nella tua casella di posta
Albert was born towards the end of the 12th century and in 1232 became Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary in Stade, then an important Hanseatic port city located at the mouth of the river Elbe in Germany.
In the monastery, which was very influential thanks to its landed properties, Abbot Albert recognised the need to introduce a stricter ecclesiastical discipline, following the model of the Cistercian rules.
Having to obtain the permission of Pope Gregory IX in Rome for this purpose, he started the journey to Rome, the centre of Christianity.
The Pope gave his approval for the desired reform, but the brethren and the relevant archbishop, the archbishop of Bremen, rejected it, more interested in a balance of power with the House of Welfen than in any further commitment to reform the monastery.
Disappointed, Albert resigned his position and entered the convent of the Friars Minor of St. John (devoted to the Franciscan ideal of poverty) in the town of Stade.
Here he devoted himself to writing, in addition to some theological works, the so-called Annales Stadenses, a Latin chronicle of the most important ecclesiastical and political events of his time.
Included in this work is the dialogue between the two monks, Tirri and Firri, about the best routes for a pilgrimage to Rome. In the dialogue, written in the form of a story, as was often done in the Middle Ages, the Abbot provides various itineraries with precise data on places and distances to be traversed, the condition of the roads and exact indications on the length of the individual stages in German miles. The original manuscript is in the Herzog August library in Wolfenbuttel, Germany.
The journey of Abbot Albert, is today the official route of the Via Romea Germanica. (Monk Albert – Brief History)
ANNALES STADENSES OF ALBERTO MONK
Reported in this 1858 publication are the Annales (in the part about the dialogue between Tirri and Firri) written by Albert the Monk in 1256. There is a separate translation into Italian. The greatest difficulty was in finding the place names of the localities, often very different from the actual ones
VIE DEI ROMEI – 1995
The historical research of the Mountain Communities of Romagna is the one that years later initiated the actual reactivation of the Via Romea, from time to time called ‘Di Stade’, ‘Del Passo Serra’, ‘Teutonica’, up to ‘Via Romea Germanica’ agreed between Italians and Germans.
PILGRIMS TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ROME – CEI – 2015
Upon arriving in Rome, tradition has it that pilgrims devoutly made the ’round trip to the seven churches’ – Here is the history and re-enactment of this pilgrimage within Rome
O ROMA NOBILIS
Ancient Song of the Pilgrims as they entered Rome (before 1000)
CASELLI – PROPOSAL FOR THE RECOVERY OF THE ANCIENT ROMAN ROUTE – 2006
Historian and anthropologist Giovanni Caselli’s advance on the hypothesis of reactivating the Via Romea Germanica
GIOVANNI CASELLI – URBAN AND ARCHITECTURAL EMERGENCIES ON THE VIA ROMEA DI STADE IN CASENTINO
Prof. Giovanni Caselli presents his study on the Casentino, the territory that stretches from the Crinale Romagnolo over the Tuscan mountains and hills towards Arezzo
PASSO SERRA – FLORENCE SUPERINTENDENCY REPORT
Archaeological report of the investigations carried out at Passo Serra in 1999 (edited by Luca Fedeli).
ILARIA DI COCCO and PIER LUIGI DALL’AGLIO – THE LINE AND THE NETWORK
In this part of the volume “La Linea e La Rete” (The Line and the Network) edited by the Italian Touring Club and the Emilia-Romagna Region, the authors describe the historical road network in Emilia-Romagna and in particular, referring to the “Annales Stadenses”, of the Via Romea Germanica, also including the characteristics of the Bidente Valley.
GIORGIO INNOCENTI GHIACCINI – VIA ROMEA IN CASENTINO
In this research, the author summarises his historical research in the Casentino area, indicating events, viability, villages, etc. linked to the passage of pilgrims and wayfarers. Useful for understanding the Via Romea Germanica and its history in this part of Tuscany.
OSIRIDE GUERRINI – (Ravenna) – A JOURNEY OF SEVENTH CENTURIES ON THE ROMAN ROAD: HISTORY OF A COASTAL ROAD
Ravenna was of fundamental importance for pilgrimages and for connections by sea and land: not only because of its history, but also because of the continuous environmental and geo-morphological variations, linked to subsidence, to the shifting of the Adriatic coast, to the variation of the course of rivers and marshy areas, to land reclamation, to the birth of real ‘islands’. In this report, the author describes Ravenna’s communications from the Roman Empire to recent centuries with precision and detail.
LUIGI POLO – A SURVEY OF ANGUILLARA VENETA – PD
Anguillara Veneta (Padua) is a centre in the Po Valley, between Ferrara and Padua. A transit point over the centuries, it saw the passage of the monk Albert, who expressly mentions it in the ANNALES STADENSES. Luigi Polo does this research, focusing on both the reclamation and the passage of famous people during the past centuries.
THE PILGRIMS’ ROUTES IN VENETO
Short elaboration by historian Marco Chinaglia at the conference in Tribano (PD) on 14 May 2023
PASSAGE OF THE LANSQUENETS ON THE VIA ROMEA
Prof. Addis Meleti, in his “Cronistoria di Civitella di Romagna -FC e dintorni” (History of Civitella di Romagna – FC and surroundings), in a paragraph recounts the passage of the Landsknechts along the Via Romea, along the Bidente Valley, on their way to the “Sack of Rome” in 1527.
SARMINIAN – LOST LOCALITY
Among the many localities mentioned by Monk Alberto is ‘Sarminian’, of which all that is known is that it was between Città della Pieve and Orvieto. Historian Francesca Bianchi has begun a study to search for this place-name, which disappeared as early as the 14th century and may have been on the ancient Cassia…
THE ROADS OF ROME
Roman expansion occurred along pre-existing road routes communicating with the territories of antagonistic peoples, so the phases of Roman expansion in Italy also indicate the chronology of the growth and development of the road system.