Vercelli

Vercelli was a commune on the Sesia between Turin and Milan, independent from 1120. It submitted to Milan's Visconti in 1334 and remained under their control in 1337.

Bishop Giovanni Fieschi expelled the Visconti in 1373, but they recovered Vercelli. After further fighting it passed from Montferrat to Savoy in 1427. French and Spanish armies captured it repeatedly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; in 1704 the French besieged it but failed to destroy its fortress. Vercelli rose in support of a constitution in 1821.