Albenga, Diocese of

ALBENGA, Diocese of. - It is the ancient Album Ingaunum or Albinganum, situated on the Gulf of Genoa (Riviera di Ponente). Capital of the Ligurian Ingauni, who, having allied themselves with Hannibal, were subdued by the Romans after bitter wars, A. became a Roman municipium, received privileges from the Senate and was enriched with monuments, of which numerous traces still remain today, along with the great ten-arch bridge, half-buried, on the Via Aurelia. It was the birthplace of the emperor Proculus.

Destroyed a first time by the Goths, rebuilt and embellished by Honorius, it still suffered sackings and destructions at the hands of the Saracens and the Pisans, yet always managing to regain its liberty, and it governed itself until 1805 with its own laws and parliaments, though depending from 1250 on the republic of Genoa. Twenty-two ancient defense towers still bear witness to its struggles. From the 15th to the 18th century it had to endure sieges and occupations, which began with that of the Milanese in 1436 and ended in 1814, when it was definitively reunited with the Sardinian State. In 1796, during the first Italian campaign, it was the seat of the General Headquarters of Bonaparte. It is part of the province of Savona, constituted in 1927 with the suppressed districts of A. and of Savona. It has notable agricultural importance and counts a population of 5,179 inhabitants, and of 12,000 in the commune.

The first bishop of whom there is certain record is Quinzio, who in 451 signed a synodal letter of Eusebius, archbishop of Milan, addressed to Leo I and concerning the condemnation of Nestorius and Eutyches. In 1159 the diocese of A., a suffragan of Milan, was assigned by Alexander III to Genoa, but this took effect only in 1213 following a bull of Innocent III.

The Benedictines had numerous monasteries in the diocese, among them S. Romolo, Taggia, Triora and Villa Regia, and in A. two important abbeys: S. Maria and S. Martino di Gallinaria, besides S. Pietro di Toirano, which passed in 1317 to the Carthusians.

A. has a cathedral begun in the 8th century, with an ogival bell tower of the 15th century and an adjoining baptistery. A beautiful church of the 13th century is S. Maria in Fontibus.

The diocese, whose patron is St. Michael the Archangel, counts 132,500 inhabitants and comprises 170 parishes, 236 diocesan priests and 51 regulars, 17 male religious houses and 58 female.

Noemi Crostarosa Scipioni

THE BAPTISTERY

From the early Christian period A. has preserved for us a most valuable monument: the baptistery, unanimously dated to the 5th century. It has an octagonal plan with the sides hollowed out into niches alternately round and square; each pillar between the niches is adorned with a column, and the columns carry arches that support the upper part of the baptistery, stery, octagonal as well, in which large windows open, closed by pierced marble transennae. In the center is the baptismal basin; a smaller font stands in one of the niches, for the lotio pedum of the Milanese baptismal liturgy. This niche still shows conspicuous remains of a rich mosaic decoration, whose most important details are a large Constantinian monogram within a triple halo (the Most Holy Trinity?), around which twelve doves hover, and a large gemmed cross toward which two lambs are turned. The baptistery was covered with a roof, not a dome. In the 9th century it underwent various remodellings, of which notable sculptural traces remain, especially in the windows. Two tombs of high-ranking persons were placed in two arcosolia, important examples of architecture and minor sculpture of that age. In 1900-1901 the whole baptistery underwent careful restorations.

Also worthy of mention are a Christian sarcophagus found recently and a brick bearing the impression of a large cross formed by two crossed fasces, perhaps belonging to the ancient little church of S. Calocero (4th-5th century), long since destroyed.

Antonio Ferrua