Roman Catholic Diocese of Tortona

The Diocese of Tortona is a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical territory in northern Italy, spanning parts of three regions of Piedmont , Lombardy and Liguria . It is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Genoa and forms part of the ecclesiastical region of Liguria. The diocese claims to be one of the oldest in Lombardy and the Piedmont.

According to legend, which is, however, a late one, the first Bishop of Tortona was Marcian of Tortona martyred under the Emperor Hadrian. Francesco Lanzoni has pointed out that the list of bishops that leads back to Marcian of Tortona is a compilation of the 16th century and that its contents are highly suspect. Additionally, the story of Bishop Marcian depends on a hagiographical source of the 10th century, which is full of anachronisms. Fedele Savio points out that the earliest document referring to Marcian was written between 729 and 820, and that it neither calls Marcian a bishop nor the Bishop of Tortona; and, as he points out, the letter of Bishop Eusebius of Vercelli, written to the people of Tortona from his exile in Scythopolis in 356, makes no mention of a bishop. The Bishop of Tortona, Vincenzo Capelli, nonetheless organized an event in October 1875 to celebrate the 18the centenary of Martianus' episcopal consecration.

Wikipedia