Chieri
Chieri is a town and comune in the Metropolitan City of Turin, Piedmont, located about southeast of Turin, by rail and by road. It borders the following municipalities: Baldissero Torinese, Pavarolo, Montaldo Torinese, Pino Torinese, Arignano, Andezeno, Pecetto Torinese, Riva presso Chieri, Cambiano, Santena, and Poirino.
History
Pre-Roman
Between the Neolithic and the Iron Age, the original inhabitants of this part of the Italian peninsula were the Ligures. The Ligures living in this area of the Po river plain belonged specifically to the Taurini tribe.The location of Chieri is within the Taurini tribe's territory, in the belt of hills which surround Turin. The original settlement was most likely founded by them, being sited on a prominent hill and growing to be the geographical focus of the city centre. Its original name would have been Karreum or a variant thereof ; this is based on the root kar, which possibly means "stone", reflecting the typical Ligurian settlement layout of a stone edifice at the centre of a grouping of other habitations within a village, which would have likely been the original layout of Chieri.
Sometime around 400 BCE, Celtic tribes crossed the Alps from Gaul and settled the Po river plain. These peoples mingled with the original Ligures, either through conquest or peaceful cohabitation, and gave rise to a Celto-Ligurian people, inhabiting the region which the Romans would call Cisalpine Gaul, i.e. "Gaul this side of the Alps".
Roman
The Romans, over the two centuries between 400 and 200 BCE, conducted a prolonged counter-offensive to conquer all of the northern Italian peninsula, partially in response to successive invasions, starting with Gauls led by king Brennus in 391 BCE, and later the Carthaginians under the great general Hannibal Barca in 218 BCE.It is likely sometime after 176 BCE that Cisalpine Gaul was completely subdued by Roman legions, and this would have included the village of Karreum itself. This was possibly under the command of Roman consul Caius Claudius Pulcrus, leading a military response to a rebellion the year before by the Ligures.
Following this Roman conquest in the 2nd Century BCE, the village became known as the Roman settlement of Carreum Potentia: the Latin name Potentia being added as a cognomen to the original Ligurian name.
It is likely that, following similar examples elsewhere, at Carreum Potentia the Roman settlement was built alongside the pre-Roman one, the Roman part built on lower ground in the plain, alongside the Rio Tepice stream and at the base of the original native hill-top settlement. It would appear the Forum and the main Temple were located in the area where the cathedral and the piazza around it currently stand, with a wall around it.
Roman historian Pliny the Elder referenced "Carreum quod Potentia cognominatur", in his Naturalis Historia, naming it within a list of fortified settlements which then abounded in the section of Cisalpine Gaul between the River Po and the Ligurian Apennines: the city was portrayed as a prosperous Roman walled city, surrounded by cultivated farmlands and scattered agricultural settlements.
By the 1st Century AD, Carreum Potentia was indeed referred to as a Roman municipium, i.e. a seat of local government for the surrounding area.
The city underwent conversion to Christianity sometime between the 4th and 5th century, as recorded on a funeral slab dated from June 488 AD for a little girl called Genesia who died at the age of two.
According to Marguerite de Lussan, biographer of Louis Balbe-Bertone de Crillon, the city of Chieri was given a republican form of government by a Balbus, member of a patrician Roman family, who relocated to the city in the late sixth century. No evidence of this statement is provided, although Chieri would emerge in the Middle Ages as a republic striving for independence from its feudal liege lords.
Early Middle Ages
No further historical records exist regarding Chieri until the 10th century, when it was officially granted as a fief to the Bishop of Turin by an Imperial grant of Otto III, although it was also subject to the military authority of the larger march of Italy, whose holder at the time was the titular Count of the House of Savoy through his marriage to Adelaide of Susa.Following the death of Adelaide of Susa, Marchioness of Turin, many of the Piedmontese holdings of the counts of Savoy were lost by her heir Humbert II.
In the political fragmentation which followed, the Piedmontese lands east of Turin were divided into the counties of Saluzzo, Biandrate and the March of Montferrat, which eventually allowed the cities of Chieri and Asti to flourish economically and declare independence from their respective liege bishops as free cities, supported by the House of Savoy who were interested in diminishing the power of the local feudal lords.
The process of obtaining independence was gradual and prudent and started with various administrative and tax reforms to provide the city's government with resources and offices of government of Roman stamp, consuls, as well as with the strengthening of the city's fortifications. In this gradual manner, the city of Chieri started to expand its influence to the neighbouring territories.
By the first half of the 11th century, the city had an encircling defensive wall erected around the San Giorgio Hill, under the direction of Bishop Landulf: these long-demolished Mura Landolfiane still clearly trace the outline of the pattern of narrow streets around the hill. The work included a strengthening of the fortifications and tower atop the hill, now incorporated into the Church of San Giorgio which occupies the hilltop and overlooks the city.
Outside the walls, on the plains surrounding the city, a church was erected dedicated to the Virgin Mary: this site was likely that of an earlier and more primitive Church dating from the 4th century, which had itself replaced the earlier Roman Temple to the goddess Minerva.
This period also experienced the construction of numerous quadrilateral towers inside the perimeter of the walls by the powerful families of the city, hence it became known as Città delle Cento Torri : a handful of these towers still survive to this day.
In 1154, the city allied itself with the more powerful city of Asti in fighting against William V of Montferrat, defeating him in battle.
At the first Diet of Roncaglia, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa who had descended upon Italy with his army to restore his sovereignty, granted William V of Montferrat, who had married a niece of the Emperor, rights over the two cities. With his army following the river Po, the Emperor was determined to lay siege to both cities. The citizen of Chieri, knowing that the city would be no match for a siege by the Imperial Army, fled the city carefully leaving behind copious amounts of wine and food for the invaders, who nonetheless proceeded to demolish its towers and ruin its fortifications, ultimately setting the city on fire in January 1155, before moving on to Asti, where they would repeat the deed.
Popular legend has it that the present-day name of the city was given by Barbarossa, who, upon departing the city after ransacking it, looked back upon its ruins and asked Ma tu, chi eri?, although this story is most likely apocryphal.
In 1158, the Emperor returned to Italy to deal with the continued insurgence of the cities of northern Italy, which were growing politically bolder and economically more prosperous.
Although this time Chieri sided with the Emperor and immediately contributed to his army, it was terribly compensated, for it was newly to the Bishop of Turin who in turn gave it to the powerful Guido III, Count of Biandrate, possibly fearing that alone he may not have sufficient power to hold it.
In 1169, Chieri and Asti signed a defensive treaty of mutual aid to defend themselves from the ambitions of the Counts of Biandrate and found themselves shortly after victorious in a war against them, restoring some of their rights and furthering their path towards independence.
In 1176, the Emperor was defeated by the Lombard League at the battle of Legnano and personally injured.
The Balbo family from the city of Chieri participated in the battle fighting in the Guelph side, against the Emperor.
At the end of the century, the city allied with Testona to declare war on its ecclesiastical liege lord the Bishop of Turin, Arduino Valperga. The town of Turin, the counts of Biandrate, and the lords of Cavoretto and Revigliasco joined on the side of the Bishop, while the lords of Cavorre and Piossasco joined on the side of the republic of Chieri. The republic of Asti, which was bound to Chieri by similar ambitions and fate, and by a military pact of 1194, came to the aid of Chieri. Although first hand recollections of the war are unavailable, it is assumed by the following peace that the war was favorable to Chieri. The peace was signed in the fields of Mairano, near Testona, on 10 February 1200 in the presence of ambassadors of Asti and Vercelli, the Bishop Arduino, the Podestà of Turin, Chieri and Testona, and numerous prominent citizens of the city, including two Pulluolii, Uberto di Bencia, two Merli, Pier Gribaldo, Signorino Balbo and Enerico Tana. The peace had several clauses, of which the most important was likely a clause stating that the two republics of Testona and Chieri would aid the Count of Savoy were he to exercise his rights over the city of Turin and the Bishop, in recognition that he was the heir of their former sovereigns and out of mutual enmity with Turin.
A treaty of 4 March 1204 bound Chieri, Testona and Turin. On top of the defensive and mutual aid clauses, others were made to establish that each of the cities would enjoy the same municipal privileges of the others, and that they would share the same podestà. Many provisions were made in regards to the bridge of Testona, which was of vital economical importance to all three cities, including its tolls, the roads leading to it and the guards to be provided. Although ambitious in nature, the treaty was soon put aside, with a new Bishop of Turin requesting that many of his privileges be restored.
This included being beneficiary of all fines for homicide, theft, treason and for duels, as well as of those foreigners who died without will and those of Chieri with no will and no relatives up to the fourth grade. This was ratified in a treaty in 1210.
On 10 June of the same year, the city signed a treaty with Goffredo, Count of Biandrate, and his nephews for mutual defense against all enemies save for the Emperor and the Bishop. The treaty forbade the Count to give citizenship to any man of the city of Chieri, and vice versa for Chieri to offer citizenship to any of his subjects. The clause is characteristic of the regulation of growth in the medieval period, where the founding of a city required imperial dispensation, fortifications were to be approved by liege lords, and the movement of people was an enormous loss of capital for the feudal system, although one that would prove irreversible as urban areas grew larger and more powerful over the coming centuries.
Many of the privileges earned were to be confirmed by Otto IV, to whom a richer Chieri sent the ambassador Iacopo de Rohat, their podestà, and many others. Privileges he granted the city included the faculty of receiving new citizens as well as confirmed sovereignty over smaller territories nearby.
In 1123 and 1224, respectively, Riva and Coazze were annexed by Chieri. The inhabitants of the latter were moved closer to Chieri with its help to the lands of Pecetto.
Greatly responsible for the prosperity of Chieri at this time was Ugone del Carretto, podestà of Chieri and in 1225 of Asti. He was also instrumental for the purchase by the city of the Castle of Revigliasco and its surrounding lands.
Finally, the commercial disputes over the merchant root from Genova and Lombardy which went through Asti and Chieri, which took Italian merchants to France, resulted in a new war by Chieri and Asti against Testona. In 1228, the troops of the two allied cities razed Testona to the ground, not sparing even its churches. In the following years, the dispersed inhabitants resettled in the nearby locality of Moncalieri.