TORTONA, DIOCESE OF. - A city in the province of Alessandria, in Piedmont. It has an area of 2,120 sq. km. with a population of 280,000, of whom 279,000 are Catholics distributed across 317 parishes, some of which are in the civil provinces of Pavia and Genoa; it has 490 diocesan priests and 130 religious priests; it has two seminaries, the minor one on the hills of Stazzano in the Scrivia Valley, the major one in Tortona; it has 23 male religious communities and 125 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 427).
The city is situated on the right bank of the Scrivia stream, at the foot of a hill that still shows surviving sacred ruins of Roman and medieval origin, and the tower of the ancient castle. It is the ancient Dertona, considered by some to be 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 Aemilia. It may already have been a Roman colony (Velleius Paterculus) around 120 BC, saw the camp of Decimus Brutus in 43 BC, then became an Augustan colony, with the name of Iulia Dertona, and was governed by duumviri, enrolled in the tribus Pontina and included in the IX Regio. By virtue of its geographical position, at the crossroads of important consular roads, it enjoyed successive periods of prosperity and economic flourishing; for this reason it was a contested land, involved in the clashes of peoples and the vicissitudes of factions. With the fall of the Western Empire (494), it successively passed under the dominion of the Goths, the Greeks (553), the Lombards (624), and the Franks (774). Its bishops held offices of importance at the courts of the kings of Italy and the Ottonians. Bishop Otto was at Brixen in 1080 among the electors of the antipope Clement III; from the beginning of the 12th century, the bishop of Tortona also held the authority of a count. But alongside this adherence to the imperial party, during the same period Tortona constituted itself as a free commune. As a result, it found itself in conflict with Pavia, an imperial city, and experienced, until its destruction, the wrath of Barbarossa (1154). Having risen from the ruins and allied itself with the Guelph cities of the Lombard League, it took part in the subsequent struggles against Barbarossa, and thus, after Legnano (1176), following the Treaties of Venice (1177) and Constance (1183), it regained its possessions and power. Then, as communes revived, with the new and old factions of Guelphs and Ghibellines, it fell under the Visconti (1313–1447), then, for a brief period, under France, and then under the Sforzas until 1530; nor did it ever rise again as a free city. Indeed, with the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, it became successively a possession of Spain (1535–1700) and then of Austria until 1738, when it was incorporated into Piedmont and, with it, into France (1796), only to return, with Piedmont, to the kings of Sardinia. Thus its history entered the Risorgimento phase. Tortona’s coat of arms is a rampant lion on a red and white rose field, with the legend: «Pro tribus donis similis Dertona leonis»; three gifts—fortitude, fierceness, generosity—make Tortona like a lion («ter dona-dertona-Tortona»).
Ezio Riccardi
On the early spread of Christianity in Tortona, there is a lack of specific information, and one must refer to what is generally known about Piedmont (v.). Christian inscriptions belong to the 5th–6th centuries, and traces of a Christian cemetery have been found outside the ancient Porta Ticinese. An ancient tradition identifies a certain Marziano, a local martyr-saint, as the first bishop of Tortona. Probably the *plebs* of Tortona was one of those under the jurisdiction of St. Eusebius of Vercelli, and the first local bishops were St. Innocent and St. Exuperantius, who was present at Aquileia in 381. Quinto or Quinziano was bishop in 451, and an unknown bishop is mentioned by St. Gregory the Great in 599. However, the series of bishops contains many uncertainties and gaps (F. Savio, *Gli antichi vescovi d'Italia: Il Piemonte*, Turin 1899, pp. 377 ff.; Lanzoni, II, pp. 820–28).
The diocese of Tortona was suppressed in 1803, when it was placed under the jurisdiction of the bishops of Casale Monferrato, Alessandria, and, to a lesser extent, other sees. Re-established 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, and the subsequent wars, destroyed its entire artistic heritage. What remains is too little in comparison with its antiquity and history: some bronzes, various objects, a few marbles (including the sarcophagus of Aelius Sabinus [3rd century]), collected in the civic museum, together with a collection of paleo-Christian inscriptions, the richest in Piedmont. There are also few ruins, mostly incorporated into other buildings. Among the medieval churches remaining in the city is the Romanesque church of Santa Maria dei Canali, mentioned in documents of 1154 and 1196, while the others, though retaining the titles of the ancient ones, are later constructions. The cathedral, in late 16th-century style, restored in 1938, dates to 1583 and replaced the splendid Innocentian cathedral of San Lorenzo, of the 4th century, built by Bishop St. Innocent on the castle, and converted by the Spaniards into a fortress that was destroyed by lightning in 1607. Of interest, in the hamlet of Rivalta Scrivia, is the Cistercian abbey with the abbey church of Santa Maria Assunta, a characteristic Gothic-Romanesque construction (1180) with 16th-century frescoes by Francesco Chisbali, and with monastic buildings of various ages and styles attached, including the chapter hall in early Gothic. In the city, in the parish church of San Matteo, a panel by Barnaba da Modena depicting the Madonna and Child; in the episcopal palace, a triptych by Macrino d’Alba (1499); in Santa Maria dei Canali, a Nativity by a Leonardo da Vinci school artist. Notable, outside the city, are the ancient collegiate churches of Sale (Santa Maria), of Casei Gerola, of Castelnuovo Scrivia (with a Last Supper by Aless. Berri), all in Romanesque style; of Pontecurone (Santa Maria Assunta), in Gothic-Romanesque style, with frescoes only partially uncovered. The collegiate church of Broni preserves ancient valuable tapestries and a rich library with rare editions and precious incunabula. Sarezzano possesses the priceless *Codex purpureus* (5th–6th century) containing the Gospel of St. John (cod. j). The cathedral of Voghera once held the famous 16th-century Gothic ciborium in embossed silver, now preserved in the Museo Storzesco in Milan.
Illustrious sons of Tortona include Father Michele da Carbonara, ORAZIONE (v.), the maestro Lorenzo Perosi, and Father A. Vaccari. - See pl. XXXIII.