CLAUDIO di TORINO. — Of Spanish origin, apparently a follower of Felix of Urgel. He attended in Lyon the school that Archbishop Leidrad had brought to a high level of efficiency. C. devoted himself to the study of Holy Scripture, on which he later wrote commentaries on various books: Genesis (811), St Matthew (ca. 816), the Letters to the Galatians (Lent 815 or 816), to the Ephesians and Philippians (817 or 818), to the Romans (818–20), to the Corinthians (820), Exodus (821), Leviticus (823), Kings and Ruth (ca. 824), Joshua and Judges (825 and 826). He lived at the court of Louis the Pious in Aquitaine and, after his appointment as emperor, in Aachen, where he had the opportunity to meet the scholars of the time, among them Einhard. Around 817 or 818 the emperor entrusted him with the governance of the diocese of Turin. But shortly after taking office, he gave violent expression to his iconoclastic tendencies, which, moreover, were still prevalent in certain areas of the Frankish clergy of the period. His conduct elicited a chorus of protests not only from the diocesan clergy, but also from Paschal I, the abbot Theodemir, his close friend, Jonah of Orléans (PL 106, 305–88), and the recluse of St-Denis, Dungal (ibid., 105, 465–530). The latter two also found fault with his writings; the fervor of the controversy, both at the time and subsequently, somewhat distorted and exaggerated certain of his errors, while his extravagant iconoclastic activity remains beyond question, described by him in these terms in the Apologeticum: « In the city of Turin, I found all the basilicas filled with the abominations of anathemas and images, contrary to the order of truth; and since I alone began to destroy what everyone revered, they all opened their mouths against me to heap blasphemies upon me, and if God had not helped me, they would have swallowed me alive ». C. defended himself with an Apologeticum, composed around 825, of which only a few fragments survive (PL 105, 454–64). He died in the course of 827 (he was still alive on 8 May) or shortly thereafter.
Most of his writings are still unpublished (manuscripts in Manitius); the published works are found in PL 104, 615–918; the letters and fragments of the Apologeticum were edited by E. Dümmler (in MGH, Epistolae Aevi Korolini, II [1895], pp. 586–613). In his own time, C. was the author best acquainted with the works of St Augustine. In his commentaries, which are principally catenae, he cites, among others, Origen, Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, Rufinus, the Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum, Fulgentius, Leo, Maximus, Gregory, and Bede.