The Path to Rome

Hilaire Belloc's best work — according to the author, as well as most critics — The Path to Rome is less concerned with Rome itself than with a pilgrim's journey to the Eternal City. A spirited Catholic apologist, Belloc traveled on foot from Toul (near Nancy), France, and crossed the Alps and the Apennines in order to, in his words, ''see all Europe which the Christian Faith has saved.'' Afterward, he turned his pen from his usual polemics to literature, and related in finely crafted prose his myriad experiences with the people he met along the way, as well as his reflections on tradition, politics, landscape, and much else. Throughout, the work abounds in Belloc's inimitable wit and good humor, and displays his profound love for the land, his faith, and his fellow man.