According to local tradition, Nice was evangelized by St. Barnabas, who had been sent by St. Paul, or else by St. Mary Magdalen, St. Martha, and St. Lazarus (who had been raised from the dead by Christ himself).

Louis Duchesne, however, pointed out that Nice was not a city (civitas) and did not have its own municipal administration.

[7] A rescript of Pope Leo I (440–461), issued after AD 450, joined the two dioceses of Nice and Cimiez into one.

During his rise to power, Charlemagne had visited Rome in 754, and had been made Patrician of the Romans by Pope Adrian I.

There is only one source that mentions Syagrius, the Life written in the early seventeenth century by the hagiographer Vincenzo Barrali Salerna (fl.

[11] The problems begin with the brother of Charlemagne, Carloman, who was born in 751, making it most unlikely that his son Syagrius was made a bishop only twenty-six years later.

[12] Charlemagne's presence in Nice was motivated (Barrali Salerna says) by a desire to convert pagans in the area, during which he defeated the King of Chimaera (Chimeriensis).

Nor was there ever a city of Chimaera, and the invention of its name seems to have been an erudite witticism, playing on mythological stories of fire-breathing monsters.

On 29 March 1137 Innocent II issued a bull, Officii nostri, confirming the privileges of the Church of Nice, including the castrum quod vocatur Drapum, for Bishop Petrus.

Before that could happen, Bishop Joannes inspected the documents again and concluded that he had been wrong in the first place; he immediately approached Pietro di Castronovo, the Apostolic legate, and explained why he had made his mistake.