The project will seek to demonstrate how cathedral cities all over Europe form a common cultural heritage composed of tangible and intangible elements. The innovation offered by ID_EURITAGE is to interpret for European communities a core cultural heritage that contains the nucleus of European Landscape, Memory and Identity; that is, historical urban monuments of Europe’s Cathedral Cities. Most cathedral cities still preserve the memory of their ancient topography and civic and religious buildings, and although some are much older than others, all have common layers of parallel and connected developments in their historic landscapes. It could be argued that collectively they form a distinctive European ‘Spirit of Place’ (ICOMOS Québec Declaration 2008).

Our principal aim is to answer the main question “What is European identity?” by explaining how cathedral cities have contributed to shaping European identity in the past, and how they still help to do this today. The project has been designed to deliver research results, social applications, educational impact, and political recommendations that address cultural diversity and integration in the past, present and future. Cathedral cities are not only highly valuable architectural, urban and artistic ensembles of tangible heritage, but also the witnesses and receptacles of a fundamental intangible heritage which is at the core of European identity. The joint understanding of cathedrals and their urban (and thus social) space goes towards determining central aspects of Europe’s main contributions to human history.