Of the current seventeen dioceses of the ecclesiastical region of Piedmont, eight date back to the ancient era (4th and 5th centuries), two to the late Middle Ages (12th and 14th centuries), six to the modern era (15th-18th centuries) and one to the beginning of the contemporary era. The chronological extremes consist of Vercelli (345) and Cuneo (1817). While in ancient times the dioceses arose on the initiative of the Christian communities, in the Middle Ages and in the modern era political conditioning was decisive: political geography conditioned the ecclesiastical one. After the peace of Vienna (1738) following the war of the Polish succession, Novara and Tortona passed to the Savoy family. With the peace of Aachen (1748), following the war of the Austrian succession, the passage to the Savoy family touched Voghera, Vigevano and the upper Novarese: thus the eastern border of Savoy Piedmont was brought to Ticino, effectively incorporating the dioceses of Novara , Vigevano and Tortona. All the dioceses of the region were suffragan of Milan until 1515, when Turin was elevated to a metropolitan see with Mondovì and Ivrea suffragans. The Piedmontese link with Milan was definitively broken in 1817, when in the post-Napoleonic restructuring, the dioceses were attributed to the two metropolitan centers of Turin and Vercelli, newly erected. We can speak of the Piedmontese ecclesiastical region only starting from 1889, when the Holy See established the seventeen ecclesiastical regions in Italy. Today the ecclesiastical region of Piedmont coincides geographically with Piedmont and the Aosta Valley, with encroachments to the north with France (a parish of the diocese of Aosta), to the south with Liguria, with several parishes of Acqui and Mondovì, and to the east with Lombardy, with some parishes of Vercelli and Novara in the province of Pavia.

 

HISTORY

I - The origins in the post-Constantinian era

The first churches of the region arose in the late Roman Empire, after those of the rest of Italy, such as Milan and Aquileia.