Gandulf of Piacenza

Gandulf or Gandolf (Italian: Gandolfo; fl. 907–31) was a Frankish nobleman in the medieval kingdom of Italy. He rose from relatively low rank to become the count of Piacenza and finally a marchio (marquis). He is an ancestor of the Da Palazzo family.

Gandulf was of Frankish origin. His father, Gamenulf, was a gastald in the county of Piacenza in the third quarter of the ninth century, and Gandulf's birth can probably be placed in that period. Gandulf's family was of middle rank and purely local importance. His father's activities cannot be traced outside of the region around Piacenza and are mainly known from judicial documents related to his office. All his known relatives lived in the same region. He may have been related to Gamenulf, bishop of Modena from 898 to 902, and to Gandulf, a gastald in Reggio. The name Gandulf was not common in Italy at the time.

Gandulf's father held land in two areas: in a region called super argele in the immediate vicinity of Piacenza and in the towns of Ziano Piacentino and Rossago in the Oltrepò Pavese. Gandulf, on the other hand, did not start off with land in or around Piacenza. It is possible that his father's lands in that region were inherited by Gandulf's brother Gamenulf, who is known only from a document of 892. Gandulf extended his own landholdings by purchases in the Oltrepò: a curtis in Fabbiano with a mill on the Tidone, some estates in Viadano and Santa Maria della Versa and also the castrum (fortified town) of Vigalone.

Gandulf was one of several low-ranking nobleman, like Milo of Verona, who profited from the wars and anarchy in Italy that followed the deposition of the Emperor Charles the Fat in 887. He had already surpassed his father's rank and influence by the time he first enters the historical record. In the royal capital of Pavia on 2 June 907, he witnessed a concession made by the abbot of Nonantola to one Lambert, a Frankish vassal of Marquis Adalbert I of Ivrea. While his father never learned to write his own name, Gandulf signed himself at the top of the witness list, a clear sign of his prominence on the occasion. Since the charter of concession was dated by the years of King Berengar I, it is significant to historians as the earliest indication that Adalbert of Ivrea had returned to Berengar's allegiance after his support for a rival king, Louis III, in 905.

...
Wikipedia