Verso Gerusalemme? : nota su un pellegrinaggio, forse, immaginario

The so-called “Codice Rustici”, currently preserved in the library of the Seminario Maggiore in Florence, next to the famous church called “Cestello” (Cistercium) in the district of San Frediano in Oltrarno, and recently published, is characterized by its unique structure. The text can be attributed, at least largely, to Marco di Bartolomeo Rustici, who tells of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the Forties of the Fifteenth century, disseminating the main account of multiple digressions (to the point it looks more like a encyclopedic hotchpotch than a diary); the written text is accompanied by beautiful tables drawn and colored, illustrating the main buildings of Florence in those times. The Codice Rustici was hitherto indeed famous and much-quoted for its illustrations, while the text was very little frequented and quoted by the scholars who study the pilgrimage to the Holy Land and its testimonies. In this essay, after detecting the main features of his diary, identifying some of its possible sources, and discussing the unlikely chance that it corresponds to a travel experience really made, we conclude it is to be read as a text with a hidden meaning, where the author celebrate Florence as “true Jerusalem”, a city of peace and justice.