The Saint Francis Walk

he walk of the pilgrims continues today ad they did during The Middle Ages: a profound testimony of faith and an exchange between different cultures.
For this reason the Tourism Promotion Agency of Rieti has created the “Saint Francis Walk” (Cammino di San Francesco), a walk through the Valle Santa of Rieti, one of the most important placesin the history of the Franciscan Order. The pilgrimage includes visits to the sanctuaries where Francis travelled to: the Sanctuary of Poggio Bustone, La Foresta, Fonte Colombo and the Greccio Sanctuary.
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Brescia Travel Guide

The news about the origins of Brescia are lost in the night of the times, trepassing in the legend: the theories about the identity of the founder are manifolds (Ercole, Troe or Tiras or Cidno, king of Ligurian, from whom the name of the hill Cidneo, at the doors of the town) while the origins of the name of the town Brixia are to seek in the domination of Galli Cenomani. In 49 B.C. it is roman town at all effects and lives some centuries of splendour, until at the ruin of the Roman Empire; followed the barbaric invasions, last of which that of the longobards that was established in the north Italy and made of Brescia one of their most important dukedoms. Their government was not wretched, but the strained terms with the Curch disembogued into war and king Desiderio tried an alliance with the frank, but, for all answer, Carlo Magno at stand of the papal troops besieged in 773 Pavia and Verona, forcing king Desiderio at the exile. The domination of the Frank lasted until at 888.
With the fall of the Holy Roman Empire begins for Brescia a difficult period, at the centre of the disputes between the Duke of Spoleto and the Marquis of Friuli. In 1090 is born the Common of Brescia, guelph, between the ghibelline commons and afterwards in continuous guerilla. The invasion of Federico I was the cause for which the commons decided for a truce and allied themselves, unfortunately without result. In fact, afterwards of the defeat of Milan, the other commons, between whose Brescia, made a promise of obedience, undergoing at terms of surrender that included the demolition of the wall and of the towers. Was in 1167 that, with an secret alliance, Brescia, Bergamo, Mantova, Cremona and Milan gave life at the battle of Legnano from that Federico Barbarossa came out defeated. After only ten years however Brescia should face Federico II and after 66 days of bloody siege the Emperor was surrendered. The successive decades were a continuous alternation of seizures of power from different rules until at the invasion of Arrigo VII in 1311. For Brescia was still years of internal battles and of passages of hand between that terrible is metioned the siege of Niccolò Piccinino, that reduced Brescia at the hunger, exhausted from the plague and almost entirely destroyed, but done not win, thanks also at the help of Venice.
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The Cathedral of Cremona

The Cathedral of Cremona, the main sacred building of the town, is the outcome of the religiousness and faith of several generations having identified itself and represented the town and its social community in it; as a proof of this the façade of the Cathedral is used as a symbol of the town in the 13th century town seals, while during the Middle Age this symbolic function was usually attributed either to the image of the patron saint or to the façade of the Town Hall. For the Cathedral of Cremona and for its thousand and more craftsmen, from the famous artist to the unknown mason or stone-cutter, the following sentence by the great scholar Giulio Carlo Argan holds good: "a Romanesque cathedral, with its pictorial and plastic display, is rarely the work of only one generation, and it is never the expression of a single creative personality. It is instead the creative and choral expression of a society that does not want to define itself only in the present, but also in the past preceding it and in the future preparing it. The generation inheriting the monument, being this completed or not, venerates in this monument their fathers' work and wants to hand it down to their sons together with their mark".
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