Walking the Ivrea stretch of the Via Francigena also means encountering the story of an extraordinary pilgrim, who ended his earthly journey here and whose name became bound to the city and its collective memory. In the Cathedral of Ivrea, beneath the altar of the first chapel in the left nave, lie the remains of Taddeo McCarthy: an Irish figure of the fifteenth century whose personal story is intertwined with the great age of European pilgrimage. Born around 1455 in West Cork, his life was marked by ecclesiastical conflicts and a long journey across Europe, at a time when the religious, political and legal dimensions of life were closely intertwined.
Appointed Bishop of Ross in 1482, he immediately encountered difficulties: the see was already occupied by another prelate, who contested his legitimacy and had him condemned and removed. Forced into exile, McCarthy undertook the journey to Rome to reclaim his rights. He obtained recognition of his position and a new episcopal appointment, but once again the see was found to be occupied by a usurper. A second journey became necessary. On the return, following the network of routes we today associate with the Via Francigena, he arrived at Ivrea in a state of seriously compromised health. Here he sought shelter not as a bishop, but as a simple pilgrim, and was received at the ancient Ospedale dei Vigintiuno, a shelter for wayfarers and the poor situated within the medieval urban fabric of the city. He died there between 24 and 25 October 1492.
Tradition holds that his episcopal ring, symbol of his dignity, was found only after his death and preserved by the bishops of Ivrea as a token of his memory. His burial in the Cathedral quickly became the object of popular devotion, giving rise to accounts of graces and intercessions that spread over the following centuries. Taddeo McCarthy was officially recognised as Blessed at the end of the nineteenth century, consolidating a veneration that has never entirely ceased. To this day, his tomb remains one of the most significant testimonies to the presence of pilgrims in Ivrea and to the city’s function as a place of welcome along the ancient transit routes.
The very date of his death — conventionally regarded as marking the end of the Middle Ages — places him at a moment of profound transformation: while the medieval networks of religious mobility continued to function, Europe was already entering a phase of change that would alter its political and geographical equilibrium. McCarthy’s death in Ivrea, inside a pilgrim hospital, in the year of the discovery of America, offers a powerful image of the passage between the long medieval inheritance and the new trajectories of modernity.
