ACQUAPENDENTE, Diocese of. - In Lazio, in the province of Viterbo, situated in the northeastern part of the region. It borders on Umbria and Tuscany, and has an area of 464 sq km with a population of 22,514 inhabitants, distributed among 14 parishes, with 29 secular priests, 11 regulars, 12 female religious congregations and 4 male religious communities. It has the minor seminary in A., and the major seminary, shared also with the other dioceses of upper Lazio, at La Quercia near Viterbo.

A. corresponds very probably to the ancient Acula, also called Aquesium, Aquae Taurinae and in the Middle Ages Aquapendens, from the hill on which it is situated and from which the stream Quintaluna descends, which then flows into the Paglia, a tributary of the Tiber. The city is mentioned in the donation of Countess Matilda to the Holy See at the beginning of the 12th century; later it set itself up as a commune, until in the 15th century it definitively became part of the Papal State.

P. P. Biondi, who wrote in 1588, tells us that from 1102 A. belonged to the diocese of Orvieto; but when in 1649 Cristoforo Ciarda, bishop of Castro, was murdered, Innocent X had this episcopal see razed to the ground and made A. the capital of a new diocese whose boundaries he determined with the bull In supremo on 13 September of the same year. As cathedral church was chosen that of the ancient Benedictine monastery of the Holy Sepulchre which, with the exception of the beautiful Romanesque crypt, was completely reworked in the 18th century in Baroque forms. Ruined by wartime actions in 1944, it is at present undergoing restoration which will return it to its primitive forms.

A. is a diocese immediately subject to the Holy See.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: P. P. Biondi, Istoria di A. (anno 1588), edita da M. Armellini, in Cronachetta mensuale di archeologia e di scienze naturali, 23 (1889), pp. 181-87 e 24 (1890), pp. 12-155; Ughelli, I, coll. 583-85; Cappelletti, V, pp. 549-81; N. Costantini, Memorie storiche di A., Roma 1903.

Benedetto Pesci

BATTLE OF ACQUAPENDENTE

A. must also be remembered for the clash of which it was the scene, in the autumn of 1867, between about 200 Garibaldians, who began there on 30 Sept. the guerrilla war of invasion of the Patrimony of St. Peter, which ended on the following 3 Nov. at Mentana, and 30 pontifical gendarmes of the local station. The latter, besieged in the barracks, after two hours of lively fighting were forced to surrender because of the fire that broke out on the roof of the building. The next day, 1 Oct., a reinforcement of 230 men, between Zouaves and line soldiers under the orders of Colonel Achille Azzanesi, in turn attacked the Garibaldians on the road to S. Lorenzo and, having taken some forty prisoners, drove them back beyond the border.

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: Lombard-Martin, Précis historique sur l'insurrection romaine, Paris 1868; P. Mencacci, La mano di Dio nell'ultima invasione contro Roma, Rome 1868; F. Cavallotti, Storia dell'insurrezione di Roma nel 1867, Milan 1869; G. G. Franco, I crociati di S. Pietro, I, Rome 1869-70; F. Gregorovius, Passeggiate per l'Italia, Rome 1907; G. Badri, s. v. in Div. del Ris. Naz., I, Milan 1931, p. 5; P. Dalla Torre, L'Anno di Mentana, Turin 1938.

Paolo Dalla Torre

@incollection{ec1_acquapendente_diocesi_di, author = {Pesci, Benedetto and Dalla, Torre Paolo}, title = {Acquapendente, diocesi di}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {I}, pages = {237--238}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1948}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/acquapendente-diocesi-di} }

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Acquapendente, Diocese of

BATTLE OF ACQUAPENDENTE

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