AMALFI, ARCHDIOCESE OF. — In the Campanian region, in the province of Salerno, it borders the dioceses of Sorrento and Nocera dei Pagani and Sarno and has 37,108 inhabitants, all Catholic, 55 parishes, with 76 diocesan priests and 23 regular clergy. Patron, the Apostle St. Andrew, whose relics, transported by Cardinal Pietro Capuano from Constantinople in 1208, are preserved and venerated in the Cathedral.
Already a bishopric since the 6th century, Amalfi was elevated to an archbishopric in 987, and then in 1818, after Pius VII suppressed the episcopal sees of Scala, Ravello, and Minori, their territories were incorporated into that of Amalfi, of which they had long been suffragans, along with the dioceses of Capri and Lettere. Two councils would allegedly have been held there in 1048 or 1059 by Nicholas II; but the second, in which the Pope deposed the Archbishop of Trani and granted Robert Guiscard the investiture of Calabria and Apulia, was more likely, even according to the Cassinese chronicler, held in Melfi.
The 9th century, which saw the rise of Amalfi’s fortunes, flourishing with maritime activity, was rich in turbulent events, ranging from the transfer to the city, by Bishop Pietro, of the body of St. Tryphon, later seized by the Beneventan prince Sicard (833–838), to the participation of Amalfitan ships in the battle against the Saracens in the waters off Ostia (849). Given the close ties between the two powers in Amalfi—a characteristic of the maritime cities of Campania—Pope John XV granted the promotion to an archbishopric in 987 to Doge Mansone III.
Established as an autonomous entity from the early decades of the 9th century, Amalfi’s rivalry with the other maritime republics began; the vessels of this Campanian city sailed the Mediterranean, and its merchants dominated trade centers and routes. Around 1020, some Amalfitan merchants founded the famous hospital in Jerusalem, from which the Order of the Knights of St. John originated. A century later, the glorious autonomy of Amalfi came to an end: in 1131, amid the Campanian and Apulian struggles reflecting the drama of the Church divided by the schism (in which Amalfi also participated—its Archbishop Giovanni "de Porta" was consecrated, probably in the same year 1131, by Anacletus II, who came to Salerno to settle the dispute between Archbishop Romuald and Prince Robert), Roger II forced the ancient republic to capitulate, annexing it to the newly formed Norman kingdom. Nevertheless, the slow but no less fateful decline of the city did not prevent the Normans and Swabians from enriching it with artistic monuments, even as the city’s area shrank, threatened by the violence of the waters and landslides.
