Twenty-first stage 2025:
Abbey of San Nicolò del Boschetto
Theme: Passion
In cammino reached on the morning of Saturday, March 29, the Abbey of San Nicolò del Boschetto in Genoa, from where the twenty-first stop of our ethical-cultural pilgrimage departed. The Ligurian capital was chosen as the third destination of the third year of this formidable experience that began in 2023 and that has seen us reach some of the most important European Abbeys over the three-year period, waiting to arrive in Rome in December 2025, to coincide with the closing of the Jubilee and the Holy Doors.
The word of the twenty-first stop was: Passion.
A term chosen not at random, since large monochrome canvases depicting Scenes from the Passion of Christ, inspired by Dürer’s engravings and made of a blue fabric that was the forerunner of jeans, were kept in San Nicolò del Boschetto. After various vicissitudes, with their acquisition by private individuals and their passage at auction in London, these masterpieces are currently on display at the Diocesan Museum in Genoa, the place where our team organized the events that marked the stage.
At the Abbey of San Nicolò, we were welcomed at 10 a.m. by “Il Boschetto” Director Alberto Di Feo and architect Roberta D’Ambrosio, who also oversaw the restoration work on the complex and guided us through the tour. Founded in 1311 as a simple chapel by the Grimaldi family and later enlarged, San Nicolò del Boschetto stands on the first slopes of the Coronata hill in the Genoese district of Cornigliano, at the foot of which are the industrial plants of Ansaldo Energia. The Abbey was governed from 1412 until the Napoleonic suppressions by the Benedictines, while today-after a long period of decline and closure-it is entrusted to the care of the Opera Don Orione, which has promoted its renovation by placing there the reception center “Il Boschetto.”
Strategically located in the Polcevera Valley, a transit area for medieval pilgrims who came on foot from the Po Valley on their way to Santiago de Compostela, San Nicolò still retains its charm as a free and hospitable area compared to the metropolitan traffic below. It has to be said that Genoa and Liguria have historically been crucial points for wayfarers coming from east to Santiago or for those coming from the north and west coast to the sea or taking the Via Francigena bound for Rome.
After visiting the exterior of the Abbey, which incorporates the original Gothic nucleus remodeled and enlarged in the 17th century with its two cloisters, it was time for the Church, which holds the sculpted shrines of the Doria, Spinola and Pinelli families inside. The “highlight” was the Abbot’s Hall, completely frescoed with landscapes and allegorical scenes.
As mentioned, today the complex houses the Reception Center run by the Congregation of the Little Work of Divine Providence, founded by Don Orione, which shelters immigrants, people and families in need. Times have changed, but the mission of Orione volunteers and priests remains the same as it was in the 1960s, when families of immigrant workers from southern Italy were housed here to work at Ansaldo.
The morning continued at the Diocesan Museum where, considering also the peculiarity of Liguria with respect to pilgrimages, the conference: “Religious Paths: Proposals and Perspectives” chaired and coordinated by Livia Pomodoro, holder of the UNESCO Chair “Food Systems for Sustainable Development and Social Inclusion” at the State University of Milan, took place at 11:30 a.m.
And it was President Pomodoro herself who introduced the debate: “This morning we were at Boschetto, in the industrial heart of Genoa, a very interesting and fascinating place of memory… In the Abbey Church there were the noble chapels with the tombs of the illustrious people who contributed to making San Nicolò important, for the benefit also of those pilgrims of the past who stopped there coming from afar, as an intermediate stop on their journey. An oasis of peace, dedicated to humanity. Here, these men built something beautiful and at the same time did some good… From many universities they have been asking us to acquaint young people with these places that we visit along our way, to make them curious and urge them to see them in person, so as to preserve their beauty for themselves and for future generations.”
It was then the turn of the institutional video greeting by Luca Lombardi, Regional Councillor for Tourism, who explained that in Liguria there are currently four main itineraries related to leisure and the sacred: the Via Francigena, which crosses the Val di Magra and the heart of Lunigiana, with its landscapes immersed in history and nature; the Alta Via dei Monti, which connects the ends of the Ligurian Riviera: a journey by paths and mule tracks between coast and hinterland; the Cammino di Sant’Agostino, whose Apennine section follows the ancient Via del Sale and commemorates the translation of the Saint’s body from Genoa to the Basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro in Pavia; and finally the Via del Mare or Patranica, which starts in Portofino and reaches Varzi and the hills of the Oltrepò pavese, also following the Apennine Via del Sale.
Gallery tappa Genova
The floor was passed to Francesco Ferrari, President of the European Vie Francigene Association: “The Cammini allow us to see and encounter so many beauties, such as here in Genoa the Museo Diocesano and San Nicolò del Boschetto, testimonies that speak of history and culture, able to stand the test of time and the times… I am happy to be able to announce that in the Cathedral of Canterbury, the city from which Bishop Sigeric departed in the year 1000 and from which the Via Francigena was born, a special information desk has been opened to issue credentials to pilgrims, in addition to the ritual blessings… Thanks to the institutional figures and volunteers, the Francigena is growing becoming an increasingly important reality… In Liguria there is, as the Councillor mentioned, a short section of the Via Francigena between Sarzana, Santo Stefano di Magra, Castiglione, Luni… From path comes path, and it is a situation that is progressively developing… The Alta Via dei Monti, as mentioned, from Sarzana crosses Ventimiglia in the direction of the Way to Santiago de Compostela. There is a project we are developing to collaborate with the Camino de Santiago, bringing together synergies and sharing. We are also promoting the Via Francigena in an international context, as more and more pilgrims come from the United States, Canada and Australia. We’ve been to the New York Fair, the Paris Fair and ‘Do the right thing!‘ in Milan… We certainly don’t have the number of pilgrims that the Way of St. James boasts, but they are still important and growing numbers… After the pandemic, there is a desire to rediscover sustainable tourism: and it is a type of tourism that involves many young people. Last year, 25 percent of the 50,000 walkers on the Francigena were young people under 25. And we need to network, to activate historical paths that are almost completely abandoned today….”
Tonino Bettanini, Director of In cammino – Abbeys of Europe, in extending thanks to the speakers and welcoming the audience, presented the format of In cammino, with its threefold formula that includes: “In the morning a conference generally dedicated to the products of excellence of the territories visited, from wine to beer to the Mediterranean diet. These are products that monasticism has often cultivated for the first time in those territories, giving them to humanity. I only bring here the example of the Abbey of Plankstetten, which today has made a totally eco-sustainable choice by producing its excellences in a completely natural and traditional way… We must forget the interpretation, a scholastic legacy of a certain Enlightenment, of a Middle Ages consisting of dark and backward centuries… For Genoa, on the other hand, the theme chosen for the conference is that of the paths, while in the afternoon we will dialogue on the word chosen for this stage: ‘Passion,’ concluding with a musical performance dedicated to this word.”
Livia Pomodoro emphasized that: “When you open glimpses, then doors open wide… Talking is about getting to know people and also getting to know each other… As we proceeded on our journey through the Abbeys of Europe, following this singular vision of ours, we discovered the richness of agricultural centers and territories that we never imagined how important they could be for the future. The world needs sustainability and a circular economy more than ever. We are realizing this these days. The Abbeys, with their past, represent a bridge to the future.”
Federico Marenco, Director General of Tourism, Agriculture and Protected Areas of the Region of Liguria, recounted in his speech an episode involving Don Orione and the writer Ignazio Silone: “This morning, before coming to the Diocesan Museum, you have been to San Nicolò del Boschetto, an Abbey that went from being Benedictine to Orionean… Behold, one day the very young Silone is accompanying Don Orione through the streets of Genoa to post three hundred Christmas cards for his former pupils. The boy notices that the saint in each mailbox along the street posts a few cards at a time and asks him why. The reason was that he did it so as not to give too much work to one letter carrier, at the risk of making him nervous and listless and perhaps losing some of those postcards so precious to the Saint. Here then is the sharing and remembrance that applies to each and every one… Don Orione was an important figure of a working priest… And we know how strikingly the rules of management trace the Regula Sancti Benedicti that is the basis of monasticism. Moreover, cloisters are an architectural symbol of peace, community, and the search for human balance… Do you know why Pegli, a district in the west of Genoa, has the same patron saint as Palermo: Santa Rosalia? The explanation is that Genoa in the second half of the 17th century was hit by the Black Death; the arrival of a Sicilian fisherman on these shores brought news that at the beginning of the century in Palermo the procession with the Saint’s relics had miraculously halted the spread of the plague epidemic in that city. Therefore, the patron saint of Pegli, from then to now, is Saint Rosalie….”
“Art and beauty must belong to everyone: that is the underlying theme,” concluded President Pomodoro. – I would like to mention the epistolary exchange that took place between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud shortly before World War II. Both appeared distant with respect to their fields study. The one was famous for his psychoanalytic theory, the other for the theory of relativity, yet they were similar, because they loved humanity… I conclude by saying that this wandering of ours certainly leaves us better than when, in 2023, we left Canterbury… The term that can best define all this is ‘together’: together we have known each other, together we will continue our journey!”