Note 58 — Chapter III · THE FIRST GOLDEN AGE

Bernard said in his preface: “I have been much struck by the accuracy of St. Silvia’s (Etheria’s) topographical descriptions; they are evidently those of a person who had seen the places described.” Of the document itself he wrote: “The manuscript is said to be written in an eleventh-century hand, and Gamurrini considers it tolerably certain that it was the work of a monk at Monte Casino.”