Praying on The Way of the Cross

MAESTRO DEL CROCEFISSO DI TREVI (14th century)
Jesus, betrayed by Judas, is arrested
Tempera on Wood -
Vatican Museum Picture Gallery

"The Way of the Cross" is part of the Official Vatican website.

It includes presentations, meditations, meditative art works (see above) and commemorative photographs on the Biblical Way of the Cross celebrated at the Colosseum since 1991.

The Way of the Cross, as we understand the term today, dates to the late Middle Ages. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (+ 1153), Saint Francis of Assisi (+ 1226) and Saint Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (+ 1274), prepared the ground on which the practice was to develop.

The Way of the Cross or Via Crucis, in its present form, with the same fourteen stations placed in the same order, is recorded in Spain in the first half of the seventeenth century especially in Franciscan communities.

The biblical Way of the Cross celebrated by the Holy Father Pope John Paul II at the Colosseum for the first time in 1991 presented certain variants in the «subjects» of the stations.

The images of works of art in the Vatican microsite come from among the following:

- "Borromeo" Liturgy of the Hours miniated by Cristoforo de Predis, Cent. XV Ambrosian Library
- Via Crucis, Felix Anton Scheffler - 1757 Church of Saint Martin, Ischl,Seeon (Diocese of München) - Germany
- Via Crucis, Scuola Veneta - Sec. XVIII Cattedrale - Padova
- Giovanni Di Paolo (1395/1400 ca. - 1482) Vatican Museum
- Pensionante Dei Saraceni (active in Rome 1610-1620) Vatican Museum
- Friedreich Overbeck (1789-1869), Vatican Museum