Identity: from Roman Novaria to the Bicocca, between town and farmsteads

A border history

According to the Province's profile, Novara was probably founded by the Ligurians and became a Roman municipium under Julius Caesar. Saint Gaudentius, its first bishop (397–418), is the patron saint, celebrated on 22 January. After the Lombard and Frankish periods (county of Pombia, 841–969) the city came under the bishops' lordship, then became a free commune and joined the Lombard League in 1168, disputing the Valsesia with Vercelli.

In 1311 it passed to the Visconti of Milan and then to the Sforza; from the 16th century came Spanish rule and about two centuries under the Farnese, a period of decline. Austria arrived in 1714 and in 1738 Novara was annexed to the Savoy territories, with a Napoleonic interlude.

The battle of Novara

On 23 March 1849, at the battle of the Bicocca, the Piedmontese army was defeated by Marshal Radetzky's Austrians; Charles Albert abdicated in favour of Victor Emmanuel II and the armistice was agreed in a farmhouse at Vignale. The Bicocca Ossuary, designed by Luigi Broggi in 1879, commemorates the fallen.

Town and countryside

Besides the city, the municipality includes the localities of Agognate, Casalgiate, Gionzana, Lumellogno, Olengo, Pagliate, Pernate, Torrion Quartara, Veveri and Vignale, and dozens of farmsteads (cascine). In the 20th century the city developed textile, engineering, chemical, printing and food industries, dairy above all; the countryside grows rice, cereals and maize. The Palazzo del Mercato, built between 1817 and 1842, houses the agricultural exchange (Borsa dell'agricoltura).