ABSTRACT
Some indulgence books listed the number of years released from purgatory that could be garnered by visiting specific shrines. Often Rome was considered the safer option, but Jerusalem, as the locale of Christ’s Passion and tomb, was regarded as the holier place. Jerusalem and Rome were major pilgrimage destinations that are connected theologically and historically. In comparing pilgrims’ experiences with Passion devotion in Rome and Jerusalem, it is worth noting a numerological correlation between the Seven Pilgrim Churches in Rome and the 14 Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem, each a multiple of the prime number seven. Installations of the Stations of the Cross in Europe were designed as participatory, active spaces. In Nuremberg, as one example among many in European cities, Adam Kraft sculpted an abbreviated Stations of the Cross known as the Seven Falls of Christ, at the turn of the sixteenth century for a local patron, the knight Martin Ketzel, after his return from Jerusalem.
