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ST. GALLEN, STIF TSBIBLIOTHEK, COD. SANG. 133, P. 608; USED BY PERMISSION

PIACENZA PILGRIM. An anonymous pilgrim from the Italian town of Piacenza reports visiting the Holy Land in the year 570. In this early ninth-century copy of the account written in Merovingian script, he says that during his travels around the Sea of Galilee, he also “came to Capernaum, to the house of Saint Peter, which is now a basilica.” Although he seems to locate the church in Capernaum, he may in fact be referencing the nearby El-Araj/Bethsaida basilica rather than the octagonal church we know from Capernaum. In 725, a Bavarian bishop named Willibald is the first pilgrim who explicitly mentions a church at Bethsaida.