Stations of the Cross Stabat Mater, composed in the 13th century by Franciscan Jacopone da Todi. James Matthew Wilson's poetic sequence, "The Stations of the Cross", is written in the same meter as da Todi's poem. Dimitris Lyacos' third part of the Poena Damni trilogy, The First Death, is divided in fourteen sections in order to emphasise the "Via Dolorosa" of its marooned protagonist during his ascent on the mount of the island which constitutes the setting of the work. These fourteen sites along the Via Dolorosa are where the events of the Stations of the Cross happened, according to tradition. These 14 stops
Via Dolorosa the development of the Via Dolorosa was intimately linked to devotional practices in Europe. The Friars Minor were ardent proponents of devotional meditation as a means to access and understand the Passion. The hours and guides they produced, such as "Meditaciones vite Christi" (MVC), were widely circulated in Europe. Necessarily, such devotional literature expanded on the terse accounts of the Via Dolorosa in the Bible; the period of time between just after Christ’s condemnation by Pilate and just before his crucifixion receives no more than a few verses in the four Gospels. Throughout the fourteenth century, a number of events,