The Piacenza Pilgrim records his visit to the basilica of Holy Sion (Jerusalem), formerly the house of *James (almost certainly the 'brother of the Lord', S00058), in which he saw relics of the Passion, stones with which *Stephen (the First Martyr, S00030) was stoned, the stone into which the cross of *Peter (the Apostle, S00036) was set, the chalice of the *Apostles (S00084), and the elaborately encased skull of the martyr *Theodota (possibly Theodote, martyr of Nicaea, S00257), from which he drank. Account of an anonymous pilgrim, written in Latin, probably in Placentia (northern Italy), c. 560.
Evidence ID
E00459
Type of Evidence
Literary - Pilgrim accounts and itineraries
Major author/Major anonymous work
Pilgrim of Piacenza
Pilgrim of Piacenza, Itinerarium 22
First recension
Deinde uenimus in basilica sancta Sion, ubi sunt multa mirabilia, inter quibus quod legitur de lapide angulare, qui reprobatus est ab aedificantibus. Ingresso Domino Iesu in ipsa ecclesia, quae fuit domus sancti Iacobi, inuenit lapidem istum deformem in medio iacentem, tenuit eum et posuit in angulum… Ibi sunt et lapides multae, cum quibus lapidatus est Stephanus. Ibi est et columnella, in qua crux posita est beati Petri, in qua crucifixus est Romae. Ibi est et calix apostolorum, in quo post resurrectionem Domini missas faciebant, et multa alia miracula, quae non recolo. Ibi est monasterium feminarum. Vidi testam de homine inclausam in locello aureo ornatam ex gemmis, quae dicunt quia de sancta martyra Theodote esset, in qua multi pro benedictione bibunt et ego bibi.
'From there we went to the basilica of Holy Sion, which contains many remarkable things, including the corner stone which, as the [Bible] says was rejected by the builders. The Lord Jesus entered this church, which used to be the house of saint James, and found this ugly stone lying somewhere, so he took it and placed it in the corner ... There are also many of the stones with which they stoned Stephen, and the small column in which they set the cross on which the blessed Peter was crucified at Rome. The cup of the Apostles is there, with which they celebrated mass after the Lord had risen again, and many other remarkable things which I cannot remember. A monastery for women is there. I saw a human head enclosed in a reliquary of gold adorned with gems, which they say is that of saint Theodota the martyr. Many drink out of it to gain a blessing, and I too drank.'
The second recension follows the text of the first without important modifications.
Text: Geyer 1898, 174 and 205-206.
Translation: Wilkinson 2002, 140, lightly modifed.
Cult PlacesCult building - independent (church)
Non Liturgical ActivityBodily relic - head
Cult Related Objects
Cult building - independent (church)
Place associated with saint's life
Non Liturgical ActivityPilgrimage
RelicsBodily relic - head
Contact relic - instrument of saint’s martyrdom
Touching and kissing relics
Eating/drinking/inhaling relics
Contact relic - other object closely associated with saint
Cult Related ObjectsChalices, censers and other liturgical vessels
Source
This Itinerary was written by an anonymous pilgrim to Palestine whose home town was Piacenza (ancient Placentia) in northern Italy: he explicitly states in the first sentence of his text that he set out from Piacenza, under the protection of the local martyr Antoninus (see E00578), and references later in the text make it clear that he successfully made it home (e.g. E00455). Otherwise we know nothing about him, except that he was male (since he occasionally refers to himself using the masculine gender: e.g. 'ego indignus' in 1.4). Unlike the earlier pilgrim Egeria, who wrote the account of her travels while still abroad (see E05245), our pilgrim wrote up, or at least edited, his account once he was home (see again E00455).His visit to the East can be dated with reasonable confidence to after 556, and before about 570, because he tells us (in chap. 1) that the terrible earthquake and tsunami that devastated coastal Phoenicia in 551 had occurred 'recently' (nuper), but also states that it happened 'in the time of the emperor Justinian' (tempore Iustiniani imperatoris), a phrasing that tells us he was writing after Justinian's death in 556.
The Itinerary opens with the pilgrim travelling (evidently by sea) to Cyprus and then on to Tripolis (modern Tripoli in northern Lebanon), and from there by land to Palestine and the holy sites of the Old and New Testaments. Within the Holy Land he travelled extensively, and his individual itineraries can be reconstructed with some precision (Wilkinson 2002 has excellent maps showing these). After this (he gives no indication of the passage of time) he travelled to Lower Egypt by way of Mount Sinai, ending up in Alexandria. The Itinerary then jumps back to Jerusalem (suggesting a leg by sea), where the pilgrim was delayed by illness. He then sets off northwards for home, but from Antioch takes a long detour eastwards into Mesopotamia. The text ends abruptly, and without comment, on the Euphrates close to Rusafa/Sergiopolis, suggesting that the final pages of the account are lost.
For the most part it is evident from our pilgrim's phrasing that he saw the places he lists in person - 'then we came', 'we saw', etc. - but on occasion he introduces the impersonal third person singular - 'two miles from the city is the shrine of', etc. - and he also mentions places that were not on his direct route; so he may have derived some of his information at second hand (Wilkinson 2002, 13).
The Itinerary is extant in two recensions. The first recension is accepted to be essentially what our pilgrim wrote. The second recension, which cannot be dated, is not massively different but makes some small alterations to the text: some deletions, some explanatory additions (e.g. E00513), and some 'corrections'. It is evident that the author of the second recension had not visited the Holy Land, and some of his supposed corrections in fact introduce obvious errors (e.g. E00413, and, most egregiously, E00571). We have ignored the second recension wherever changes from the first are not substantive; but quoted its text where there are significant differences, for two reasons: because some of these differences are interesting in themselves, even though they are undatable (e.g. E00457), and because sometimes., for instance with a name, the manuscripts of the second recension may actually preserve the pilgrim's text better than do those of the first recension (see, for instance, E00456 and E00513).
The Itinerary can be readily compared with an earlier pilgrim's diary written in the 380s by another western pilgrim, Egeria. The Piacenza pilgrim's text is less detailed than her account, but shows the development of 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.
As with all the pilgrim texts from the Holy Land, it has been difficult to decide what to include, and what to exclude from our database, focused as it is on the 'cult of saints'. We have necessarily excluded the vast number of sites associated exclusively with the life and miracles of Jesus, and have, of course, included all obvious references to cult sites of Christian saints: their graves, churches, and references to important places in their lives, such as their place of martyrdom. A problem, however, arises when our pilgrims write about sites associated with figures from the Old Testament, since in time many of these certainly acquired Christian cult, but it is generally impossible to tell whether our pilgrims regarded these figures as saints in the Christian tradition, whose power and aid they might invoke, or whether they record the holy sites associated with them through a broader and looser biblical curiosity and veneration. The compromise position we have taken with regard to these Old Testament figures is to include all references to places associated with them where our Christian writers record miraculous occurrences or where there was a church or oratory, and also all references to their graves (though with these latter there is often no explicit reference to Christian cult).
(Bryan Ward-Perkins, Robert Wiśniewski)
Discussion
The mention of drinking from Theodota's skull is a unique attestation of such a practice. The best attested martyr of this name is Theodote of Nicaea; but it is very possible that a local saint is here referred to. The other relics seen here are more predictable, though it is somewhat strange that Jerusalem laid claim to a relic associated with Peter's crucifixion in Rome.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).
Record Created By
Robert Wiśniewski
Date of Entry
04/05/2015
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00030 | Stephen, the First Martyr | Stephanus | Certain | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Petrus | Certain | S00058 | James, 'brother of the Lord' | Iacobus | Uncertain | S00084 | Apostles, unnamed or name lost | Apostoli | Certain | S00257 | Theodote and her three sons, martyrs of Nicaea | Theodota | Uncertain |
|---|
Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Robert Wiśniewski, Cult of Saints, E00459 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E00459