Bobbio e il suo episcopato tra Genova e Piacenza:un sistema di relazioni nei secoli XII e XIII

During the 12th and 13th century Bobbio entertained relationships only with Genoa and Piacenza among all the cities which surrounded the diocese. These cities established an efficient system of relationships – in which the economic and commercial aspects were of fundamental importance – and hindered the small episcopal see, which had been established in the Ligurian and Piacentine Appennine in 1014, from acquiring autonomy. A constant trait of the history of the diocese of Bobbio is the difficulty in managing the patrimony obtained from the constantly impoverishing monastery of Saint Columbanus, which gave the diocese substance on the territorial level. The Genoese archbishops, in whose circumscription the Bobbiese bishopric was included from 1133, deliberately chose not to intervene in the wake of such difficulties. They failed to appoint any exponent of the Ligurian clergy on Bobbio’s see (while clergy from Bobbio are attested as holders of the Ligurian see), thus showing a lack of interest on the part of the same Genoese Commune which was content to retain the use of the road through the Appennine guaranteed by the Commune of Piacenza. The growing involvement of the bishops and the Commune of the Emilian city in the overall developments in Bobbio can be measured from the fact that during the late 13th century a podestà and a bishop from Piacenza were appointed in Bobbio, thus establishing Bobbio’s peripheral status.