Photons of Culture - Getting inspired by history and space in the design of light interactive experiences

Once arrived at their final destination, pilgrims started the return travel, made along the same path they walked for the outward travel. Pilgrims came back home always with something more with them: signa super vestes were the emblems sewed on their hats and mantles that testified the completed pilgrimage. They were often metal plaques (quadrangulae) of just few centimetres on which a symbol of the place of pilgrimage was visible: in the case of Rome there were the pictures of Peter and Paul standing for the unity of Church, or the image of Saint Peter with the keys of the kingdom of heaven, or the Veronica; for Santiago the symbol was the shell, while for Jerusalem the cross or a branch of a palm of Jericho.
Showing these signa allowed pilgrims to take advantage of the protection of the Church and of the right to be hosted during the walk home.

All these symbols were a sort of ancient souvenirs hanging on the neck and were not only the testimony of a completed travel but also a pass for the long travels back home, and they were meant to have a strong protective and thaumaturgic value.

Together with the shell, the keys of and the images of the saints Paul and Peter, the labyrinth is another recurring symbol along the road to Rome: it is a symbol of the human difficulty to find out salvation. In Pontremoli, a little italian village in Lunigiana, a sandstone slab with a labyrinth depicted on it, is conserved in the Church of Saint Peter, dating back to the 11th-12th centuries. In the Middle Ages the village was one of the main stages of Via Francigena. Often, holy images and the representation of labyrinths carved on portals or inside the churches, could be found along the path as the pilgrims found the strength and the courage to continue their travel by praying in front of the image of a Virgin Mary or they felt relief knowing that the tortuous path, similar to a labyrinth, had the purpose of finding peace in Christ (Brizzi 2010:110).