Basilica di San Giulio

The Basilica di San Giulio is a Roman Catholic church on the small Isola San Giulio in the center of Lake Orta, province of Novara, north-western Italy. It has the status of a minor basilica. Although the island is part of the Orta San Giulio municipality, the basilica belongs to the San Giacomo parish, including the island and a portion of the west coast of the lake in San Maurizio d'Opaglio municipality.

According to tradition, it was the hundredth, and last, church founded by Julius of Novara and his brother Giuliano, both natives of Aegina in Greece, who dedicated their later years to the evangelization of the area around Lake Orta. Legend has it that around year 390 the saint reached the island sailing on his cloak, and then freeing it from dragons (symbols of paganism); after the defeat of the monsters he built a small church devoted to the Twelve Apostles.

In the Early Middle Ages the strategic position made the island an important defensive point; first it was the abode of a Lombard duke, then Berengar II of Italy built a castle there. The construction of the castle is sometimes attributed to Onorato, bishop of Novara.

Military constraints and damage during sieges conditioned the development of the church; some of whose structures were reused as military buildings. The ancient octagonal castle tower, demolished in 1841 in order to allow the construction of the seminary, was probably built on the baptistery.

Archaeological excavations inside the church found traces of an ancient basilica (5th to 6th century), a small north oriented chapel with a single apse. Around a century later a new church was built, bigger and correctly oriented, still with a single apse. It is supposed that the wars occurred in 962, when the fortress (occupied by Queen Willa, Beregar's wife) was besieged by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor; this may have damaged the early Middle Ages church. The modern church, constructed in the 12th century, is Romanesque, with a nave and two aisles, but was modified in the following centuries.

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