England and America, Ireland, Africa, the Holy Lands, Italy and Greece… I could put up photos from so many so many odd ecclesiastic finds across so many years of travel that fed into Gospel (or at least whetted my appetite for more research), but this will be the short version.  I followed Lucy and Dr. O’Hanrahan’s route pretty carefully with detours to places like Avignon, France, and Patmos, Greece, that ended up not making the book.  I was 30 pages into the Patmos episode when that little voice–was it the Holy Spirit?–intruded who whispered… uh, it’s already too damn long–get them to Jerusalem already. Two out of the three “dangerous” locations in 1989 seemed challenging but not really deadly (Northern Ireland, the West Bank of the Jordan during the first Intifada) but Ethiopia was too dangerous for me.  I’m no James Fergusson! (See below.)

In Rome, between trips to the Vatican Library, I went to the Seven Pilgrimage Churches to see what I could see, including San Lorenzo outside Rome’s walls where poor St. Lawrence was tossed on the grill.  This basilica was built mostly in the 500s and has so many odd chapels and crannies, that when it came to be lunch time, the sexton looked around, didn’t see anyone, and locked me inside… Pope Alexander IV had political difficulties and had to retreat to San Lorenzo (which was way outside of Rome,once upon a time) and before escaping even further to Viterbo, he pontificated here. So I, Antipope Wilton I (I’m fairly sure I’m the first “Wilton”) set up the automatic timer and took my rightful place, ascending the Cosmati throne!

Going to all these sacred sites and private collections, it was very important in Italy and Greece to blend in perfectly with the locals and undo decades of shameful American tourist behavior: