Pilgrims who visited the Holy Land between the IV and VII century

Illustrations 1: From Bordeaux to Milan (1-3)


Aerial view of the modern city of Bordeaux. There the Garonne and Dordogne rivers join together to form the 75-km long Gironde estuary.

1. The Garonne river at Bordeaux

2. The Vicarello cup 2.

One of four silver cups found in Vicarello (Bracciano - Rome). The cups, a votive gift by an ancient traveller to a healer god, are made in the shape of a Roman milestone (1st century AD). They are engraved with an inscription describing the whole itinerary from Cadiz (Spain) to Rome.



A Latin inscription engraved on the Vicarello cup gives all the details of the itinerary from Gades (Cadiz - Spain) to Rome, as indicated in the title of the inscription.
A section of the route, from Vapincum (Gap - France) to Ticinum (Pavia - Italy), is covered also by the Anonymous pilgrim of Bordeaux (red box) in the first part of his journey. A second common section, but in inverse direction, from Placentia (Piacenza - Italy) to Rome is found again at the end of the itinerary (green box).
The bottom line gives the total distance from Cadiz to Rome as being 1,841 miles. The journey of our pilgrim, taking into account only the parts covered by land, consisted of at least 5000 miles.

3. A Roman itinerary

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assistant professor of Christian Archaeology at SBF-Jerusalem.
Updated Thu, Dec 9, 1999 at 04:48 by John Abela ofm - Space by courtesy of Christus Rex
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