Raimondo and the Magdalen: a twelfth-century Italian pilgrim in Provence
Diana Webb
Abstract The life of Raimondo ‘Palmario’ Piacenza (d. 1200) has been preserved in a seventeenth-century Latin retranslation an Italian translation the original written by Master Rufino 1212. There seems little reason, however, to doubt its authenticity. It contains brief descriptions two long-distance pilgrimages undertaken saint, Holy Land as very young man, and 1170s Compostela Provence. In Provence he is said have venerated Mary Magdalen, whose house at Bethany had visited with great devotion on his earlier pilgrimage, also Lazarus, Martha Maries. If authentic, Rufino's narrative preserves exceptionally early record pilgrimage Provencal shrines these saints, including place Magdalen's penitence Provence, which according other evidence were only just beginning be identified. As citizen would well-placed obtain up-to-date word-of-mouth information about relics. He was visitor St Antony Vienne, popular destination later pilgrims Compostela, ‘St Bernard’, who probably not saint Clairvaux, but Carolingian bishop Romans-sur-Isere.
Journal of Medieval History