ACERRA, DIOCESE OF. – In the Campanian region, in the province of Naples, a suffragan of the same. It occupies the territory situated between Naples and Caserta, with an area of 140 sq. km. and a population of approximately 50,000 Catholics, of whom 22,000 reside in the city and comune of Acerra. Within the diocese there are 46 churches, 20 parishes, 48 diocesan priests, and 25 regular clergy.
Acerra, one of the oldest cities of Campania, already mentioned in 322 B.C. as a *civitas sine suffragio*, was destroyed by Hannibal during the Second Punic War in 216 B.C. The Romans rebuilt it, and later, in the new administrative division made by Augustus, it was assigned to the First Region (Latium and Campania). In the Middle Ages it was part of the Duchy of Naples, suffering devastation at the hands of the Lombards. After the Norman conquest it was elevated to a county, and its counts frequently rebelled against the kings of Sicily. Before falling at the end of the 13th century under the power of the Angevins, it had been, from the early decades of that century, a fief of the Counts of Aquino. It endured sieges by the Aragonese in 1420 and in 1480 finally surrendered to King Ferdinand I, who at the beginning of the 16th century granted it as a fief to Ferdinando de Cardenas. The Cardenas family held Acerra until 1806.
The origins of the diocese cannot, as Gams has done, be traced to the end of the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century, because the Concordius claimed as bishop of Acerra and present at the Roman Synod of 501 and 502 was instead bishop of Misenum. Moreover, no further notice of bishops of Acerra exists until the second half of the 11th century. It is more probable, therefore, that Acerra had its first bishops with the beginning of Norman rule. Among the most distinguished were Cardinal Vincenzo Carafa (1535), the Neapolitan nobleman Vincenzo Pagano (1606), and Ciro degli Altieri (1761), also of Naples. Notable monuments include the Cathedral, dedicated to the Assumption, rebuilt in the 19th century, and the church of the Annunciation, containing a 14th-century panel of the Annunciation.