From the first Christians to the Franks

Sentences without a label are documented facts; the others are marked "probable" or "uncertain".

Between the 4th century and 891 Eporedia is transformed: the first Christian communities are born, then the Lombards arrive and finally the Franks of Charlemagne. This page follows the town and its territory up to 891, the year in which the march of Ivrea is created and the story of the castles begins.

The first Christians

According to tradition Christianity begins to spread in Ivrea in the second half of the 3rd century, but the information about its beginnings is scarce and comes from two hagiographical texts of debated value, a Passio of the Theban Legion and the Vita Gaudentii. uncertain The new faith takes hold in Eporedia only in the second half of the 4th century, at roughly the same time as in Aosta and Turin. probable The church of San Nazzaro, in a burial area along the road to Vercelli, could be one of the first places of Christian worship in the town, linked to the cult of the martyrs promoted by Ambrose in Milan. probable At San Secondo di Salussola an Early Christian basilica measuring 22.60 by 12.60 metres was excavated between 1991 and 1998: its oldest core dates from the 4th-5th century and there were graves around it.

The first known bishop of Ivrea is Eulogio: he takes part in the synod called in Milan by Archbishop Eusebius in 451, where he is represented by the priest Floreio or Florenzio, who later succeeds him. Eulogio and Floreio, however, are attested with some uncertainty. probable Bishop Innocenzo dies at about 72 on 29 March 486: his gravestone makes him the only bishop of Ivrea before the Lombards whose existence is entirely certain.

Sources: Mennella 2014, pp. 177, 179; Tosco 1996, p. 3; Pipino 2014, p. 9

The gravestones of Eporedia

Around the amphitheatre, by then abandoned, a cemetery of brick-lined graves grew up. Two gravestones record people buried there:

• Formicula dies on 7 October 461 after thirteen years, four months and twenty-three days of marriage. She belonged to the honesti, the upper class of the local community.
• Marcello dies at twenty on 19 April 464. His marble slab was found in 1956 in the area of the amphitheatre.

The name Formicula comes from formica, "ant", and is one of the Christian names of humility, but perhaps it meant "little ant" and praised the industriousness of the insect: this is the first time it appears in the inscriptions of northern Italy. probable

Marta dies on 22 April 510. She was a religiosa femina, that is a woman who lived in retirement almost like a nun and devoted herself to prayer or charity: she is the only one recorded in this way in the inscriptions of north-western Cisalpine Gaul. An inscription in verse, now lost, records the priest Silvio, who at his own expense put up a building where he gathered relics of saints to protect the town. Alongside Latin names such as Marcello and Silvio and the biblical name Marta there appear names born from the meeting of Romans and barbarians, such as Maurilione and Droctario, who died in 474 and 545.

Sources: Mennella 2014, pp. 178-182

Goths, Byzantines and Lombards

The sources collected do not document Goths in Ivrea: the only indirect reference is the date of Marta's inscription, the year of the consulship of Boethius, whom Theodoric later had put to death. uncertain Some scholars recognise Ivrea in the kástron Eourías mentioned by George of Cyprus in the second half of the 6th century: it would have been a Byzantine stronghold that held out for some time against the Lombards. More recent studies doubt this. uncertain

Ivrea, with its territory as far as Vercelli, is one of the duchies of the Lombard kingdom (568–774), as are Turin and Asti. According to some historians the Lombards occupy Ivrea as early as 570: in 574 they raid the Valais passing through the Aosta Valley. probable The duchy was meant to be a frontier bulwark against the Franks, guarding the routes that come down from the passes of the Aosta Valley, closed off at Bard by the clausurae. probable

Bishop Desiderio of Ivrea attends the synod of Rome in 680, when the Lombards had by then become Catholic. In Ivrea coins are struck in the name of King Desiderius with the inscription Flavia Eborigia. A large hammered bronze basin, found in the territory of Ivrea at an unknown spot, perhaps came from a rich Lombard grave of the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 7th century. probable In the 7th century the Cosmography of the Anonymous of Ravenna still mentions, near Eporedia and not far from the Alps, a town called Victimula.

Sources: Mennella 2014, p. 180; Giostra 2014, pp. 155, 157-158; Tosco 1996, p. 3; Pipino 2014, p. 14

The Borgomasino necropolis

The necropolis was found by chance between 1875 and 1897 at Cantarana, near the Uriale stream, while clay was being dug for the kiln of the Peretti brothers. The excavations were not documented and most of the objects were dispersed. Buried there was a group of barbarian culture that had arrived with Alboin and lived near the road along the left bank of the Dora between Ivrea and Quadrata. probable There were more than 90-100 graves, in earth pits 1 to 2 metres deep; of the bones only the teeth remained, perhaps because of the acidity of the soil. The necropolis was used from the end of the 6th century until at least the end of the 7th and was abandoned towards the end of the 8th. probable

• Warriors: many graves had a long sword, scramasax, spear and shield; the sword that survives has a pattern-welded blade.
• Horses: one grave held together the teeth of a man and of a horse, a sword, a stirrup and a bit; two other horses were buried on their own. Horses and stirrups suggest that the group also included people of a nomadic steppe tradition, such as Avars or Bulgars. uncertain
• Women: the finders saw five pairs of basket earrings in gold filigree and two pairs in another metal, perhaps silver: so at least seven women's graves with rich grave goods. Three necklaces of glass beads survive, with 50, 34 and 18 beads, often red, white, yellow or green.
• The funeral: a cross of thin gold sheet measuring 4.5 cm, with a face on each arm, was sewn onto a veil laid over the face and chest of the dead person.

Sources: Giostra 2014, pp. 155, 158-167, 173

The Franks up to 891

In 772 King Desiderius entrusts Tunnone, duke of Ivrea, with confidential missions to the new pope, Adrian. In 774 one of Charlemagne's two armies comes down from the Aosta Valley and Ivrea must have been one of the first Lombard towns to fall. probable In June 801 Charlemagne and his court celebrate the feast of St John in Ivrea, on their way back to the lands of the Franks.

Anscario, of Burgundian descent and son of Amedeo, count of Langres, is documented from 879 to 899 and comes to Italy in the retinue of his kinsman Guido of Spoleto. On 21 February 891, in Rome, he already appears with the title of marchio in two charters of the emperor Guido. Guido creates the march of Ivrea and entrusts it to Anscario, probably after his imperial coronation that day, to protect the western frontier towards the kingdoms of Burgundy and Provence. probable In the spring of 894 Anscario defends Ivrea against King Arnulf: this is the first certain record of the castle of Ivrea. Here the other portal begins, "The Morainic Amphitheatre: castles, ricetti and villages".

Sources: Giostra 2014, p. 155; Tosco 1996, pp. 4-5; Bertolini 1961, entry Anscario

Open questions

For the Goths there are no excavations or studies. Of Borgomasino we know neither the village of the living nor, without analysis of the bones, the age and sex of the dead. Lastly, no source collected gives the names of the counts of Ivrea between 774 and 891.

Sources: Mennella 2014, p. 180; Giostra 2014, pp. 158-159