AGRIGENTO, Diocese of. - In southern Sicily, it is a suffragan see of Monreale, called Girgenti until 1927; today it has about 28,000 inhabitants (35,000 in the municipality) and is the capital of a vast province (3,043 sq km and 475,600 inhabitants). Founded in 582 B.C., the ancient Akragas in its early years was dominated by the fierce tyrant Phalaris (565-549). Later the figure of Theron (488-472) stood out, who, having allied himself with Syracuse, defeated the Carthaginians at Himera (480) and extended the dominion of A., which he brought to a high degree of prosperity. After him the city governed itself with a form of republican government, had periods of great flourishing, and suffered the foreign dominion of the Carthaginians first, of the Romans afterward, under whom it fell definitively in the Second Punic War (210 B.C.). After the fall of the Western Empire, it belonged to the Vandals, the Goths and then the Byzantines, under whom the city was by then in decline. In 827 it fell under the Muslims, who rebuilt the destroyed city higher up, encircling it with walls; only in 1086 was it wrested from their dominion by the Normans. After having taken part in the War of the Vespers (1283) and endured the vicissitudes of the Chiaromonte family (14th century), the commune also developed under the government of the Spanish viceroys.
The existence of a Christian community in A. before the peace of the Church cannot be documented; the contrary claims, being based on an interpolation in the authentic Acta of St. Felix of Thibiuca, have no probative value, just as various hagiographic texts relating to saints in some way connected with A. have no documentary value, since they are generally anticipations of later events, or local duplications of authentic saints of other places. Among the data furnished by such sources we can retain only the name of Libertinus, albeit with reservations, as that of the proto-bishop of Agrigento: but we can say nothing about the age of his pontificate. The testimony of a Jewish colony (inferred from an inscription) could, however, lead us to consider it possible that a Christian community was not slow to arise from its midst, the earliest evidence of which is of an archaeological character (some lamps of the 4th-5th century).
Historical information, however, can be found only toward the end of the 6th century, during the pontificate of Pope Gregory I (590-604), from whose epistolary there emerge some names of bishops of Agrigento, namely a Eusanius, who was deposed by Pelagius II (578-90), and a Gregory, who, accused we do not know of what fault, was likewise deposed, but, subsequently rehabilitated, returned in 598 to his see, where he still was in 603. It is to be held that this Gregory is the celebrated holy bishop of Agrigento, author of a commentary on Ecclesiastes in 10 books and of other minor works (not extant) and greatly venerated in the Eastern Church; of him we have four biographies, all in Greek, the principal one of which was written by a Leontius, monk and abbot of the monastery of St. Sabas in Rome, and his contemporary (PG 98, 742-1181).
Subsequently, from the signatures of the acts of the Lateran Council of 643 and the Constantinopolitan Council of 680, two other bishops of Agrigento appear, Felix and George: the last known before the Saracen invasion.
As for the monuments of that period in A., some are mentioned in the hagiographic sources: leaving aside certain minor ones, it is to be noted that the aforementioned biography of St. Gregory written by Leontius speaks of an ancient basilica and episcopium which, having been profaned by the presence of a usurper during Gregory's trial, were upon his return destroyed and rebuilt elsewhere with the consent of the Pope and the Emperor, who on that occasion are said to have made great donations.
The new Basilica, erected by restoring "an idolatrous temple near the southern walls," is certainly the one that remained until the works of the 18th century within the Doric temple known as that of Concord, in the walls of whose cella arches were opened, also demolishing the division with the opisthodomos so as to obtain a wide central nave, then closing the peristasis and thus creating the side aisles, as similarly and more or less contemporaneously had happened at Syracuse for the temple of Athena, the present Cathedral of that city. The Basilica, dedicated to Sts. Peter and Paul, later received the name of its dedicator ("S. Gregorio delle Rape"). But the most ancient monuments are of a sepulchral character and are found in the area of the southern walls. Immediately south of these walls extended the Roman necropolis, a part of which, excavated in 1899, revealed that it had later been used by Christians as well. Other tombs cut into the very thickness of the southern walls likewise belong, by their characteristic arcosolium form, to the early Christian and Byzantine age. In the whole area, then, between the so-called temple of Juno and the Porta Aurea (thus always along the southern walls) numerous formae and about twenty hypogeal burial chambers are cut into the rocky ground, most of which were obtained by the transformation of ancient water cisterns and ancient grain deposits. The largest of these chambers, the so-called grotta Fragapane, may be called, by its extent, a veritable catacomb; it still preserves traces of pictorial decoration around some of its tombs. Although extremely devastated, its development can be placed between the end of the 4th century and the course of the following century. Contemporary or slightly later are the formae "sub divo" and the other burial chambers, as well as the tombs of the walls.
With the Arab invasion A. followed the fate of the other churches of Sicily, and its suppressed hierarchy was restored only with the Norman conquest of Roger I, who in 1086 appointed as bishop St. Gerland of Besançon (d. 1104). From then on the episcopal succession has remained unbroken down to the present day. During the Nor-
Norman-Swabian period the bishops of A. often took an active part in political events: thus, for example, the German Gentile, who had already been chancellor of the king of Hungary, promoted to A. by William I (1054) (Hugo Falcandus drew a portrait of this turbulent prelate known for the struggle he waged against Stephen of Perché); Bartholomew Offamil, of English origin, brother of Walter and his successor in the see of Palermo; Ursone, a supporter of Tancred, dispossessed by Henry VII and reinstated by the Empress Constance; Rinaldo of Acquaviva (1244-64), excommunicated by Alexander IV for having favored and crowned King Manfred. In modern times, during the struggle for the "Sicilian monarchy," Lorenzo Gioeni d'Angiò (1730-54) distinguished himself.
Although it was dismembered in the last century, the diocese of A. remains one of the most extensive in Sicily. The jurisdiction of its bishop extends over 46 communes with 98 parishes, 474,500 Catholics, 345 secular priests and 82 religious.
Among the sacred monuments of A. are to be remembered: the Cathedral (14th century), dedicated to St. Gerland, remodeled in the 18th century, with a grandiose unfinished bell tower of the 14th century (notable in the chapter hall is a rectangular Greek sarcophagus of exquisite workmanship with four episodes from the story of Phaedra); S. Maria dei Greci (14th century), S. Nicola (13th century), S. Giorgio, with a portal of the 1300s, the monastery of S. Spirito or Badia Grande (1290), one of the most beautiful in Sicily. In times past the abbeys of S. Maria del Bosco, S. Leonardo di Chiusa, S. Angelo di Prizi, S. Maria di Palazzo Adriano, S. Giorgio di Triocala, S. Maria di Refesic, and others were famous. - See Pl. XLII.
