AMELIA, Diocese of
### AMEDEUS (Blessed) OF SAVOY
Temerarious Duke of Burgundy sided with the first without, however, obliging himself to wage war against the second; he knew how to assert his rights against Marquis William VIII of Montferrat and Giangaleazzo Visconti. As his illness grew more violent, in 1469 he entrusted the regency to his wife. He spent his final days in Vercelli and died urging all to practice those virtues that had been the principal aim of his life: charity and justice. St. Francis de Sales collected with great zeal the proofs of his holiness, and St. Robert Bellarmine held him up as an example to rulers. On 3 March 1677 Innocent XI confirmed his cult and fixed his feast for 30 March.
---
AMELIA, Diocese of
In the Umbrian region, in the province of Terni, it borders on the dioceses of Todi to the north, Spoleto to the east, Narni to the south-east, Orte to the south, and Bagnoregio to the west. It covers an area of 262.08 sq km, with a population of 21,000 inhabitants, divided into 20 parishes, served by 24 secular priests and 35 regulars, with 7 male and 13 female religious houses. It has the minor seminary in Amelia and the major seminary in Assisi, shared with the other dioceses of Umbria.
Amelia, called *Ameria* by the Romans, according to Cato as cited by Pliny (*Natural History*, III, 14), would have been founded 387 years before Rome; its antiquity is also attested by the so-called Cyclopean walls. After the Roman conquest, the rulers began one of the great military roads there, which they called the *Via Amerina*, and elevated the city to the rank of a municipality.
Christian faith in Amelia must have been preached already in the early centuries of the Church, but no trace of it is found in the sources, whether monumental or literary. The *Passio* of St. Firmina, not earlier than the 6th century, places the burial of the saint, after her martyrdom under Diocletian, near Amelia, where in the 9th century her relics would have been rediscovered. A later redaction of the same work, however, indicates the martyr’s tomb near Civitavecchia, where St. Firmina likewise had a cult or where her relics were preserved. The first bishop of Amelia would be Hilary, whose existence is corroborated by documents from the Roman Synod of 465.
In the first half of the 8th century, Amelia was the property of the Holy See and, because of its strategic position, was used as a fortress and counted among the *castra sancti Petri*. In 739 it was occupied by the Lombards, but in 742 King Liutprand restored it to Pope Zachary, and, with the establishment of the Papal States, it became part of them until the formation of the Kingdom of Italy.
Amelia is a diocese immediately subject to the Holy See.