Rue de la Peyrolerie

Rue de la Peyrolerie is a narrow, steep staircase street that climbs directly toward the massive stone flank of the Palais des Papes. Its worn limestone steps have funneled visitors toward the papal fortress since the fourteenth century. In thirteen forty-eight, when the Black Death decimated Avignon, the street sat within the shadow of a palace housing the highest authority in Christendom. People hurried up these stairs to deliver petitions to the Pope, hoping his proximity offered some divine protection against the plague.