Getting to the Holy Land: Franciscan Journeys and (Global?) Mobility

This chapter contributes to the study of early modern mobility, exploring the institutional structures and mechanisms that facilitated movement and their role in shaping individual trajectories. In order to do so, it focuses on the journeys undertaken in the seventeenth century by some Franciscan friars heading toward the convents of Custody of the Holy Land. Taking the analysis of the friars’ itineraries toward Jerusalem and the Middle East as its point of departure, the chapter reassesses the role played by early modern networks in facilitating mobility across the Mediterranean and in integrating short-and long-distance movements, and pinpoints some of the factors that shaped individuals’ trajectories.