IVREA, a town and episcopal see of Piedmont (anc. Epo redia), Italy, province of Turin, 38 m. north-north-east from the city of Turin by rail and 27 m. direct, 77o ft. above sea-level, on the Dora Baltea at the point where it leaves the mountains. Pop. (1931) 10,640 (town), 15,402 (commune). The cathedral was built between 973 and 1002, but nothing is left of this period save the ambulatory round the choir and the two bell-towers. The fine campanile of S. Stefano belongs to 1029-1042. The hill above the town is crowned by the imposing Castello delle Quattro Torri (1358).
The ancient Eporedia, at the junction of roads from Augusta Taurinorum and Vercellae, at the point where the road to Augusta Praetoria enters the narrow valley of the Duria (Dora Baltea), was a military position of the Salassi who inhabited the whole upper valley of the Duria. The importance of the gold-mines
of the district led to its seizure by the Romans in 143 B.c. The centre of the mining industry seems to have been Victumulae (see TiciNum), until in loo B.c. a colony of Roman citizens was founded at Eporedia itself ; but prosperity was only assured when the Salassi were finally defeated in 25 B.C. and Augusta Praetoria founded. There are remains of a theatre of the time of the Antonines and the Ponte Vecchio rests on Roman foundations.
In the middle ages Ivrea was the capital of a Lombard duchy, and later of a marquisate; both Berengar II. (95o) and Arduin (I002) became kings of Italy for a short period. Later it sub mitted to the marquises of Monferrato, and in the middle of the 14th century passed to the house of Savoy. The surrounding district is known as the Canavese.