LAFRERI, Antonio
(b. ca. 1512, Orgelet, d. 1577, Roma)

Pilgrims visiting the Seven Churches of Rome during the Holy Year of 1575

c. 1575
Engraving
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Pilgrimage and procession were familiar aspects of urban life in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Sites of major relics such as Rome, Assisi, Padua, Chartres, Cologne, Santiago de Compostela, and Canterbury drew pilgrims in a constant stream, their attention focused on the redemptive powers of the saint or saints whose relics they had come to venerate and upon whose intercessions they believed their salvation depended. As the hub of Christianity, Rome had the greatest concentration of shrines and relics in Europe, and its seven (an appropriately symbolic number) major basilicas formed a well-defined pilgrimage route within and immediately outside the walls of the city itself.

The engraved depiction of the Holy Year of 1575 shows the pilgrims greeted by apparitions of the name saints of the major basilicas. St Peter with his keys is at the bottom of the print, standing outside his own church in the Vatican, as it appeared at that time, before the lengthening of the nave and the addition of the façade we know today; the dome is only partially completed. Pilgrims kneel before him.

This engraving was published in Speculum Romanae magnificentiae (Mirror of Rome's Magnificence)in Rome in 1575 by Antonio Lafreri (Antoine Lafréry), a French engraver and publisher active in Rome. The Speculum Romanae magnificentiae is a collection of engravings of ancient and Renaissance Rome and important for research in architectural history. In demand by tourists, this work made Lafreri the first major print publisher.