The year of 590 CE found Rome wracked by floods and a plague that killed its pope. Gregory I, in attempt to mollify an angry God, called for a seven-fold litany, letania septiformis. For reasons unknown, this litany was performed again in a slightly modified form in 603, just 13 years later. The first litany may not have been answered, but the second laid claim to the city of Rome, sanctifying and making real its streets through a pilgrimage of persons within seven different societal roles, setting out from seven different points, winding through seven different paths, and ending at one church. The clergy, beginning at S. Giovanni in Laterano, the men from S. Marcello, the monks from Ss. Giovanni e Paolo, nuns from Sa. Maria in Cosmedin, married women from S. Gregorio Magno, widows from S. Vitale, and children from Sa. Cecilia all met at Sa. Maria Maggiore. This series of photographs, taken by turning around at every 137 steps, celebrates those seven routes as the means by which the modern city is reenacted through the operation of looking back.