Probably starting in Montpellier, the devotion to Saint Roch soon spread all over Europe and is found in Southern France, Alsace, Corse, Paris, Anverse, Lisbon, Köln, Nürnberg and the Hanseatic cities of the North Sea, Scandinavia and Poland. In Italy, besides Venice and the Veneto, centres of the cult could be found in Rome, Voghera, Piacenza, Brescia, Abruzzo and Southern Italy.
Soon countless brotherhoods and confraternities were born.
At present, there are three thousand churches and chapels dedicated to the Saint in Italy. Two hundred and sixty are parish churches, of which a hundred associate him to other saints, usually Saint Sebastian. There are many capitals, generally situated at crossroads and the town gates, to ensure the Saint's protection from plague.
There are about thirty place-names in Italy after Saint Roch and, in Italian onomatology, he is in the eightieth position, although he comes fifth in some places in the South.