Vercelli, Vercellae for the Latins, is one of the oldest urban site in
the north of Italy. It has been the first town in Piedmont to have the physical
and political structure of the "città-stato", one of the
first example of structured urbanisation in the V century BC. In that period,
Vercelli, oppidum of the Celts settled in this area, had an administrative
organisation and a district wider than the actual one, based on the model
of the Greek colonies of the south of France, with which it had relationships.
The contact with Rome and its civilisation brought an evolution in this
town: firstly it was a mere centre of commerce situated in a strategic area,
then it rapidly assumed costumes and magistrates from Rome, even if it was
simply a group of villages developed around an administrative and military
centre. The first written documents about its history are dated 43 BC: a
letter from Bruto to Cicerone and a stele in which is mentioned, both in
Latin and in leponzio, a magistrate of the "città-stato".
With August, Vercelli became a roman municipium: it assumed the characteristics
of the roman town. New houses, temples, markets, theatres, amphitheatres,
a new fluvial harbour, aqueduct and the massive walls with a wide ditch
were built. Its inhabitants, in the first century AD were about 20.000.The
roman walls are the first example of walls in this town, even if an older
and smaller perimeter probably surrounded the original oppidum. Recently,
a part of the roman walls has been discovered in via Q. Sella. The first
perimeter of walls was refurbished in the Tardoantico: towers and fortifications
were added. Then they were demolished. The complete perimeter hasn't been
discovered yet, but it had to be not much smaller than the perimeter of
the medieval walls. In the Middle Age, the towns in the north of Italy were
very probably smaller than in roman period, because during the longobardo
reign the urban centres occupied a small part of the old roman centres.
Around 1100, Vercelli was a medieval commune and it needed a new and wider
perimeter of walls, wider than old roman centre. The roman walls in fact
were only few tens of metres away from the more external medieval walls.
Between 1300 and 1500 the Visconti and the Savoia families transformed the
town in a stronghold with a new castle, a citadel and new walls. Therefore
they occupied the same perimeter of the medieval walls, superimposing to
them in some parts. These massive bastions (ramparts), visible in the engraving
of the Theatrum Sabaudiae, were afterwards demolished after the French conquest
in 1704 and the bricks were recovered to build new houses. The walls were
replaced by the allee, avenues that still today surround the centre of the
town.These successive modifications of the urban walls, produced transformations
of the centre of the town from the V century BC on. In this narrow space,
history has left on the front of the houses traces visible still today.
In the subsoil, the ruins of the town stratify from the roman period on;
the medieval structure is formed by houses with towers and forts build by
the noble families. The centre of the town keeps a great architectonic and
archaeological value and it would deserve careful studies by the town council
(municipality) in order to exploit its great potentiality.