Egino of Verona

Egino of Verona, whose name also appears in the forms Eginon and Aegino, was a bishop of Verona in the late eighth century and later a monk of the abbey of Reichenau. Neither the date nor the place of his birth is known from contemporary evidence. Historical literature describes him as a nobleman of Bavarian or Alemannic origin, and thus as a figure from the eastern Frankish lands rather than from Italy. His career took shape in the generation after Charlemagne conquered the Lombard kingdom in 774 and began to appoint clerics from north of the Alps to Italian bishoprics.

Egino is attested as bishop of Verona from about 780 until 799. In that period the church of Verona was being integrated into the political and religious structures of the Carolingian world. The most important surviving monument of his episcopate is the Egino Codex, a richly decorated homiliary produced at Verona for the bishop around the years 796 to 799. The manuscript, now in Berlin, documents the activity of the Veronese scriptorium and the bishop's own liturgical and pastoral needs. Records also show that Egino maintained a benefactor's relationship with the Benedictine abbey of Reichenau on Lake Constance.

In 799 Egino resigned the see of Verona and retired, with royal permission, to Reichenau. He spent his last years there as a monk. He died at the abbey on 17 April 802 and was buried on the island. A local cult formed around his tomb at Reichenau, and he has been venerated as a saint in regional tradition, with a feast on 17 April. No act of papal canonization from later centuries is recorded; his cult is of the early medieval local type typical of monastic churches.

Beyond these outlines, the biographical record is thin. No vita written near his own time has survived, and nothing certain is known of his family, education, or personal life. He is not known to have been married, to have had children, or to have occupied the papacy or a patriarchal throne. Interest in him today rests on his role in Carolingian Verona, on the Egino Codex, and on his retirement and death at one of the principal abbeys of early medieval Alemannia. For an eighth-century bishop, even this modest dossier of office, manuscript, resignation, and dated death is comparatively well documented.