The Tuscany Region is leading the effort to have the Italian section of the Via Francigena recognized by UNESCO, with the aim of designating the historic pilgrimage route that has connected Canterbury to Rome since the Middle Ages as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity.

The Via Francigena is the oldest and most significant medieval route linking and guiding pilgrims from England and northwestern Europe to the Italian peninsula—especially to Rome, the ultimate destination of the journey as the center of Christianity and its most important places of worship—as well as to Jerusalem and the Mediterranean.