Brother Giovanni is a Franciscan and lives in the Convento San Francesco in San Miniato Alto in Tuscany.  He is short, tubby, bald and wears a plain brown robe tied with a white cincture; he has sandals on his bare feet. At the age of sixty-nine he is excused work outside the Convento in the lower Arno valley. He now welcomes Via Francigena pellegrini who are walking to Rome. This, he struggles to enjoy.