The former capital of the Roman Empire is in its lowest state when the young pilgrim Rocco passes through its wall in January, 1368. The city which saw the victorious armies of Julius Caesar parade by, the exploits of Nero spread around, and the building of lavish basilicas by the Emperor Constantine, is an anemic city. Barely 35,000 inhabitants--there used to be a million!--drag their boots through the dirty, badly paved streets, bordered by crumbling houses, with filthy waste grounds where goats graze...overflowing with sadness, malaria still weakens a population poor and depressed... The city that was queen of the Mediterranean world has fallen to terrible assaults. Seized and sacked five times between 410 and 546, stripped of its role as capital by Constantinople and Milano, Rome was taken back into the hands of the popes beginning with Gregory the Great (590-604). They reside in the Lateran Palace.

After the crowning of Charlemagne in the city of the apostles (year 800), the popes were involved (too closely) in the political battles that the princes of the West waged without let-up. So, between conflicts and violence, the city knew some times of glory. The year of 1300, decreed a Holy year, a great jubilee, marks a surge of life. Millions of pilgrims come: up to 200,000 a day! Needless to say, there must have been some problems with lodging! And a short-lived prosperity. But nine years later the head of Christianity leaves Rome for Avignon. A terrible blow for the Holy City. Ruin. It will be necessary to await the final return of the popes and the end of the great schism in 1418 for the city to regain its vigor and start to live again.