Rebirth from Heaven

Duration: 2 ½ hours (approximately)

Distance: 2 km

Difficulty: easy

Churches along the route: Santa Toscana | Santa Maria del Paradiso | Santi Nazaro e Celso | San Tomaso Cantuariense | San Paolo in Campo Marzio

This itinerary is part of the Verona Minor Hierusalem circuit, a cultural association created with the aim of enhancing the role of Verona as Little Jerusalem and its numerous and valuable examples of Christian architecture.

You are in Veronetta, a district of great charm waiting to be discovered, ready to take a trip back to the Middle Ages, among the echoes of the Templars and the roads that led pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem to stop in Verona. We start from the church of Santa Toscana, originally called Santo Sepolcro (Holy Sepulchre), which is located a few steps away from Porta Vescovo: it is in this place, connected to the via Postumia, that pilgrims returning from the Holy Land were hosted. The church was restored in the 1960s by the Order of the Knights of Malta, of which it is also their headquarter in the city. Now walk a few minutes towards the historic centre to reach Santa Maria del Paradiso, set in the city streets and unknown to the Veronese themselves: you will be amazed to discover that it houses one of the most interesting reliquaries in Europe, with thousands of artefacts for the devotion of the faithful! Nearby you will also find the church of Santi Nazaro e Celso, with the splendid chapel of San Biagio and valuable paintings by great artists of the sixteenth century.

Continue northwards on this journey through the centuries, arriving at the Renaissance period with the church of San Tomaso Cantuariense, opposite the Nuovo Bridge, inside hosts the eighteenth-century organ played by a very young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who decided to leave his mark: his initials are still engraved on the wood! The itinerary concludes by returning towards Navi Bridge with the last stop on the route, the church of San Paolo in Campo Marzio, dedicated to the Apostle of the Gentiles: in the heart of the university area, it was rebuilt after the bombings of the Second World War and it is still possible to contemplate the stupendous altarpiece by Girolamo dai Libri and to admire a chapel containing paintings by Paolo Veronese, Farinati and Bonsignori.

“Rinascere dal Cielo” is a journey that combines the charm of history and traditions (such as that of the Order of the Templars, guardians of the faith and works related to it) with the great music of a genius like Mozart, up to the amazing reliquary that concentrates in one place the memory of thousands of saints, who are still linked from heaven to earth. It will be like discovering man’s pilgrimage between earth and heaven: if on earth the travellers are accompanied by faith and sustained by the greatness of artistic testimonies, in heaven, inhabited by Saints and by Christian men and women who by their example have guided the faithful to guard and live the faith, he will find the destination of his pilgrimage, the heavenly city the longed-for Jerusalem, where total peace will reign and God will be “all in all” (1Cor 15:28).

You can find information material for your visit in the individual churches, at the IAT Tourist Office in Via degli Alpini, 9 and at the Infopoint of Verona Minor Hierusalem (little church of San Pietro Martire).

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