Where is our cathedral? An experience of heritage education

In 990, on his way back to Canterbury, archbishop Sigeric the Serious (950ca-994) wrote in a diary his eighty stopping-places on his way home. Moving from Placentia (Piacenza) to Pamphica (Pavia) passing the Po River, it is believed he passed in the nearby of Calendasco. Since 2016 this small village is a selected case study for a class in ‘Historical Building Preservation’ at the Polytechnic of Milan, Piacenza Campus, bachelor in Architecture. Now we are trying to match university students with inhabitants, and young citizen too, to strengthen a bottom-up strategy in heritage preservation. In 2021 a convention between the University and the Municipality has been signed not only to promote on-site studies and original historical research but any strategies to link tangible and intangible Christian culture and its legacy. The idea is to recall to the contemporary ‘citizen’ the place the pilgrims visited, churches and cathedrals like those of Piacenza and Vercelli and their multi-faced heritage. The paper will present ongoing experiences.