Egino of Verona

Egino of Verona (Egino) was bishop of Verona from 780 (?) to 799 and, retired as a monk at Reichenau, reposed on 27 February 802 on the island of Reichenau. He is regarded as blessed and venerated in the Western Church.

He came from one of the leading Alemannic families, perhaps of Ahalolfing origin, and was probably related to Hildegard, the second wife of Charlemagne. He belonged to the king's confidants and supporters. After the Frankish conquest of the Lombard kingdom in 774, Egino was installed, apparently in 780, as the new Carolingian bishop of Verona. The fact that the Benedictine Radolt of Reichenau accompanied him there and that he himself later chose Reichenau as a place of retreat shows an early connection, perhaps even membership in the monastery.

His term at Verona seems not to have been without conflict, and his resignation not only because of age. The background was probably the beginning of the opposition between Pepin of Italy, who wanted to be independent, and his father. As a decided man of Charlemagne, Egino lost support. In 799 he moved to the cell of Saints Peter and Paul at the western tip of the island of Reichenau, which he had founded with the permission of Abbot Waldo and richly endowed, something that cannot have been done without years of preparation. Only after a vacancy of more than two years did Radolt succeed him at Verona. After his death in 802 he was buried in the church he had founded; the grave in the choir of the present Romanesque collegiate church was arranged in the 12th century.