TORTONA, DIOCESI of. — City in the province of Alessandria, in Piedmont. It has an area of 2,120 sq. km and a population of 280,000 inhabitants, of whom 279,000 are Catholics distributed among 317 parishes, some of which lie within the territory of the civil provinces of Pavia and Genoa; it has 490 diocesan priests and 130 religious priests; it has two seminaries, the minor seminary in the hills of Stazzano in Val Scrivia, and the major seminary in T.; it has 23 male and 125 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 427).
The city is situated on the right bank of the Scrivia torrent, at the foot of the hill that still displays scant surviving ruins of Roman and medieval origin, as well as the tower of the ancient Castle. It is the ancient Dertona, considered by some to have been a city of the Ligurians, and by others, less accurately, of the Taurini. It was connected with Genoa, Piacenza, Turin and Acqui by important roads, including the Via Postumia and a branch of the Via Emilia. It may already have been a Roman colony (Velleius Paterculus) around 120 B.C.; it saw the camp of Decimus Brutus in 43 B.C.; it later became an Augustan colony, under the name Italia Dertona, and was governed by duumvirs, enrolled in the Pontine tribe and included in the IX Regio. By virtue of its geographical position, at the unavoidable confluence of important consular roads, it enjoyed successive favorable developments and economic prosperity; for this reason it was a contested land, involved in the clashes of peoples and in the vicissitudes of factions. With the fall of the Western Empire (494), it successively passed under the rule of the Goths, the Greeks (553), the Lombards (624) and the Franks (774). Its bishops held important offices at the courts of the kings of Italy and of the Ottonians. In 1080 Bishop Ottone was at Brizen among the electors of the antipope Clement III; from the beginning of the twelfth century the bishop of T. also held the authority of a count. Yet set against this adherence to the imperial party was, during the same period, the formation of T. as a free commune. Consequently, it found itself at war with Pavia, an imperial city, and experienced, to the point of destruction, the wrath of Barbarossa (1154). Risen from its ruins and allied with the Guelph cities of the Lombard League, it took part in the subsequent struggles against Barbarossa; thus, after Legnano (1176), following the Treaties of Venice (1177) and Constance (1183), it recovered its possessions and power. Then, as the Communes revived, together with the old factions of Guelphs and Ghibellines, it fell under the Visconti (1313-1447), then, for a brief interval, under France, and afterward under the Sforza until 1530; nor did it ever again rise as a free city. Indeed, through the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, it successively became a possession of Spain (1535-1700) and of Austria until 1738, when it was incorporated into Piedmont and, with it, into France (1796), to return, with Piedmont, to the kings of Sardinia. Its history thus entered the Risorgimento phase. T. bears as its coat of arms a rampant lion on a red field and a white rose, with the motto: « Pro tribus donis similis Dertona leonis »; three gifts—strength, pride and generosity—make T. like a lion (« ter dona-dertona-Tortona »).
Ezio Riccardi
Regarding the first spread of Christianity in T., there is no detailed information, and it is appropriate to refer to what Piedmont (v.). The Christian inscriptions belong to the fifth and sixth centuries, and traces of a Christian cemetery have been found outside the ancient Porta Ticinese. An ancient tradition identifies a Marziano, a local holy martyr, as the first bishop of T. Probably the « plebs » of T. was one of those under the jurisdiction of s. Eusebius of Vercelli, and the first local bishops were s. Innocenzo and s. Esuperanzio, who was present at Aquileia in 381. Quinto, or Quinziano, was bishop in 451; an unnamed bishop is mentioned by s. Gregory the Great in 599. But the succession of bishops contains many uncertainties and gaps (F. Savio, Gli antichi vescovi d'Italia: Il Piemonte, Torino 1899, p. 377 ff.; Lanzoni, II, pp. 820-28). Pio Paschini
The diocese of T. was suppressed in 1803, when it had to pass under the jurisdiction of the bishops of Casale Monferrato, Alessandria and, to a lesser extent, other sees. Reconstituted in 1817, it was made a suffragan of Genoa.
The city must once have been rich in monuments and abbeys; but the devastations of the barbarians and of Barbarossa, as well as the subsequent wars, destroyed its entire artistic heritage. What remains is far too little in comparison with its antiquity and history: some bronze objects, various artifacts and several marble pieces (including the sarcophagus of Elio Sabino [third century]), collected in the Civic Museum, together with a collection of early Christian stone inscriptions, which is the richest in Piedmont. The ruins are likewise scant, for the most part incorporated into other buildings. Among the medieval churches, the Romanesque church of S. Maria dei Canali remains in the city, mentioned in documents of 1154 and 1196, whereas the others, although bearing the titles of the ancient churches, are later. The Duomo, in the late-sixteenth-century style and restored in 1938, dates from 1583 and replaced the magnificent Innocentian cathedral of S. Lorenzo, from the fourth century, built on the Castle by Bishop s. Innocenzo and converted by the Spaniards into a fortress, which was destroyed in 1607 by a lightning bolt that struck the gunpowder stores. Of interest, in the hamlet of Rivalta Scrivia, is the Cistercian abbey with the abbey church of S. Maria Assunta, a characteristic Gothic-Romanesque construction (1180) with sixteenth-century frescoes by Franceschino Basilio, together with monastic buildings of different periods and styles, including the chapter house in early Gothic style. In the city, in the parish church of S. Matteo, there is a fourteenth-century panel of the Madonna con il Bambino by Barnaba da Modena; in the episcopal palace, a triptych by Macrino d'Alba (1499); in S. Maria dei Canali, a Natività from the school of Leonardo. Noteworthy outside the city are the ancient collegiate churches of Sale (S. Maria), Casei Gerola and Castelnuovo Scrivia (with a Leonardesque Cena by Aless. Berri), all in the Romanesque style; and that of Pontecurone (S. Maria Assunta), in the Gothic-Romanesque style, with frescoes only partly uncovered. The collegiate church of Broni preserves ancient valuable tapestries and a rich library with rare editions and precious incunabula. Sarezzano possesses the « Codex purpureus », of inestimable value (fifth-sixth century), containing the Gospel of s. Giovanni (cod. 3). The celebrated fifteenth-century Gothic ciborium in chased silver, now preserved in the Sforza Museum of Milan, came from the cathedral of Voghera.
Illustrious sons of T. include p. Michele da Carbonara, d. ORAZIONE (v.), maestro Lorenzo Perosi and p. A. Vaccari. — Vedi tav. XXXIII.
BBL.: Lanzoni, II, p. 820 ff. and bibliography cited there; G. A. Bottazzi, Antichità di T., Alessandria 1808; F. Gabotto and V. Legé, Le carte dell'Arch. capitol. di T., Pinerolo 1905; A. F. Trucco, Cartari dell'abbazia di Rivalta Scrivia, 2 vols., ibid. 1911; F. Gabotto, Per la Storia di T. (Bibliot. st. subalpina, 96), Pinerolo 1905, pp. 1-30; C. Goggi, Notizie per la storia di T., 3 vols., Tortona 1945. See also Italia Dertona. Riv. della Soc. stor. Tortonese, 1903-14, which resumed publication in 1953. Ezio Riccardi