Evidence ID
E00528Saint Name
Pamphilos of Caesarea, martyr in Palestine, ob. 310 : S00140
Prokopios from Scythopolis, martyr in Palestine, ob. 303 : S00118
Cornelius the Centurion, New Testament saint : S00301Saint Name in Source
Pamphilus
Procopius
CorneliusType of Evidence
Literary - Pilgrim accounts and itinerariesLanguage
LatinEvidence 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 - tomb/graveCult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
PilgrimageCult Activities - Relics
Contact relic - saint’s possession and clothesSource
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 martyrdoms of Pamphilos and Prokopios at Caesarea were recorded by Eusebius (see E00275 and E00391, and E00296, repectively).
The story of Cornelius, the centurion converted by Peter, is told in Acts 10. It is not clear, however, why our pilgrim believed that Cornelius' bed could convey a blessing (unless this is a strange way to refer to his grave). Beds feature quite often in our database as relics, but this is generally because they were places where miraculous cures had happened (see, for instance, E00412, relating to a bed where Elijah effected a miraculous cure), or they were where the saint had passed to heaven. There is no special reference to a bed in the story of Cornelius in Acts.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), 300.
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