Otto I, Marquess of Montferrat

Otto I (also Otho or Ottone; died 991) was the Marquess of Montferrat briefly following his father Aleram on the throne.

Otto was the son of Aleram and his first wife. Notably obscure, he did not appear with his parents and his younger brother Anselm at the foundation of the monstery of Grazzano in 961. On Aleram's death in 967, the large marca Aleramica was broken up: Montferrat went to Otto and Liguria to Anselm. Their elder brother William II had already deceased.

In his own lifetime, Otto does not appear in any document with the margravial title, but he appears in the documents of later generations cited as such. He appears in a confirmation of the possessions of the abbacy of Fruttuaria with the title in a patronymic. He probably never used the title in life, but his descendents retroactively applied it to him, as he held the same post as they.

Otto died in 991, as known by the foundation act of his son for the monastery of Spigno, which Otto himself had planned on building.^[1] By his unnamed wife, he left two sons: an eldest named William, who succeeded him, and younger named Riprando. He also left two daughters, Otta and Waldrada (Gualderada).

Notes

1. He arranged to have built a monastery in loco et fundo Spignni ad locum hubi monte Sancti Quintini dicitur in onore Domini Dei Salvatoris, Sanctique Thome apostoli et beati martiris Christi Quintini. Spigno lies between Acqui and Savona, at the confluence of the Valla and the Bormida. Otto's family finished his project pro salute illius anime nostrorumque atque omnium fidelium ("for the health of his soul and ours with all faith"). The monastery also replaced that of Giusvalla, destroyed by the Saracens.

Sources

• Merlone, Rinaldo. Prosopografia Aleramica (secolo X e prima metà del XI).