Evidence ID
E00449Saint Name
Elisha, Old Testament prophet : S00239Saint Name in Source
HeliseusType of Evidence
Literary - Pilgrim accounts and itinerariesEvidence not before
551Evidence not after
614Activity not before
551Activity not after
614Place of Evidence - Region
Italy north of Rome with Corsica and Sardinia
Palestine with SinaiPlace of Evidence - City, village, etc
PiacenzaPlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Piacenza
Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardegna
Sardinia
Caesarea Maritima
Καισάρεια
Kaisareia
Caesarea
Kayseri
Turris StratonisMajor author/Major anonymous work
Pilgrim of PiacenzaCult activities - Places
Burial site of a saint - unspecifiedCult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
PilgrimageCult Activities - Relics
Bodily relic - unspecifiedSource
This Itinerary was written by an anonymous pilgrim to Palestine who started and finished his journey in Placentia. He visited the East probably not long after the earthquake in 551, since he presents the destruction of Berytus (modern Beirut) in this year as a relatively recent event. He certainly visited Palestine before the Persian invasion in 614, since in his account Jerusalem is under Roman administration.
The Itinerary is extant in two recensions. The first one is shorter and generally closer to the original, but sometimes it is the second recension which preserves the original text. Moreover, the additions that can be found in the second recension, unfortunately difficult to date, bear an interesting witness to the development of the cult of saints.
The Itinerary can be compared with an earlier pilgrim's diary written in the 380s by another western pilgrim, Egeria. The Piacenza Pilgrim's itinerary is less detailed than her account, but shows the development of the cultic practices and infrastructure which had taken place in the course of two hundred years: there are more places to visit, more objects to see, and more saints to venerate.Discussion
The tomb of Elisha in Sebaste is recorded by Jerome at the end of the fourth century(E06327). In Jerome's day, the bones of John the Baptist, a much more important figure for Christians than Elisha, were also believed to lie in Sebaste (see E05274, E05278 and E06327); but the evidence of our pilgrim, and also that of the Theodosius (E07913), shows that by the sixth century this was no longer believed to be the case.Bibliography
Edition:
Geyer, P. (ed.), Antonini Placentini Itinerarium, in Itineraria et alia geographica (Corpus Chistianorum, series Latina 175; Turnholti: Typographi Brepols editores pontificii, 1965), 129-174. [Essentially a reprinting of Geyer's edition for the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 39, Wien 1898.]
English translations:
Stewart, A., Of the Holy Places Visited by Antoninus Martyr (London: Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, 1887).
Wilkinson, J., Jerusalem Pilgrims Before the Crusades (2nd ed.; Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 2002).
Further reading:
Maraval, P., Lieux saints et Pèlerinages d'Orient: Histoire et géographie, des origines à la conquête arabe (Paris: Cerf, 1985), 290.
