ANCONA and NUMANA, ARCHDIOCESE OF. — The most important city of the Marches, situated on a bend of the Adriatic coast formed by Mount Conero, Ancona has about 95,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the most populous province of the Marches (1,938 sq. km. and 38,000 inhabitants) and the seat of the archdiocese, which is bounded to the north and east by the sea, to the southeast by the dioceses of Osimo and Cingoli, and to the west by those of Iesi and Senigallia. It has 44 parishes, 80 diocesan priests and 40 regular clergy, and 118,000 Catholic inhabitants. The considerable body of Christian memories and, in particular, their antiquity suggest that the Church of Ancona was the first to arise in the entire Picene region. The first bishop historically certain is St. Marcellinus (5th-6th century), there being no similar historical testimony in favor of two martyrs venerated there and considered proto-bishops: St. Cyriacus, the primary patron of the city, and St. Primianus. A distinguished bishop of Ancona was Leopardo, legate of Pope Adrian II to the Bulgarians (Liber Pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne, II, p. 185). Martin V united the ancient Church of Numana (Humana), which was in decline and in ruins, with that of Ancona (19 October 1422), and Benedict XIV granted the fusion in the title of both Churches. In 1907, Pius X elevated Ancona to an archdiocese without suffragans. The territory was part of the patrimony of the Roman Church (Liber Pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne, I, p. 428); later, in the Constitutiones Marchiae Anconitanae of 1357, Ancona appears first among the Civitates maiores et magis nobiles. It experienced the rule of various lordships and, at intervals, autonomous government, until in the 16th century it was subjected once more and definitively annexed to the Papal State.
Abbacies. — Two abbeys, whose buildings remain in part, have historical value: Santa Maria di Portonovo at the foot of Mount Conero, founded by Peter of Ancona (1038), and the Camaldolese abbey of San Pietro on the summit of the mountain, in the diocese of Numana.
Monuments. — The oldest and most notable Christian monument of Ancona, the basilica of the Protomartyr Saint Stephen, mentioned by St. Augustine (Sermo 323: PL 38, 1145-46), has completely disappeared. A most interesting Christian hypogeum came to light in 1879: the cubicle of Flavius Enentius (Bull. di Arch. Crist., 3rd series, 4 [1879], pp. 128-32). Notable remains of two paleochristian churches, one from the 4th-5th and the other from the 5th-6th century, with mosaic floors and panels with funerary inscriptions, are still preserved beneath the Romanesque church of Santa Maria della Piazza. The most important sacred monument of the city is the cathedral of San Cyriacus (12th century) in the form of a Greek cross, with a dome, an artistic prothyrum, and various Byzantine-Romanesque-Gothic elements. In the crypt, along with other Christian relics, are the sarcophagi of Flavius Gorgonius and of the martyr Saint Dasius.
Archives. — The episcopal archive has been dispersed. The chapter archive preserves, among other things, a precious evangelary (7th-8th century) known as the Evangelary of Saint Marcellinus.
Serafino Prete
ANCONA IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY. — The city of Ancona, important for many reasons, was also the first and most active port of the Papal State, and as such was fortified by it and by others who successively occupied II. Ceded by the Holy See to Napoleon under the armistice of Bologna (26 June 1796) and the Treaty of Tolentino (16 Feb. 1797), which followed the not entirely inglorious clash of the Senio, it became part of the Roman Republic until, after a long siege by Russians, Turks, Austrians, and insurgents, it was returned to Pius VII on 5 July 1800, the Pope having landed there on 21 June previously. The French returned after Marengo (27 Jan. 1801), and then in July, through the Concordat, the Pope.
Reoccupied by Napoleon in 1805, it was annexed three years later to the Kingdom of Italy because of the Pope’s refusal to adhere to the Continental Blockade. Between 1813 and 1815 Neapolitans, French, and Austrians contended for Ancona in a varied and shifting sequence of events, until Pius VII definitively recovered it on 25 July of that year. The uprisings of 1831 were quelled in the Papal State with the entry of the Austrians into Ancona, who, in agreement with the government, declared null the capitulation extorted from Cardinal Giovanni Antonio Benvenuti by the insurgents. In 1832, to counterbalance Austrian intervention in Romagna and Bologna, a French force landed unexpectedly at Ancona, finding itself in serious difficulties due to renewed disturbances by active innovators and vigorous remonstrances from the Holy See. Meanwhile Gregory XVI, having excommunicated the revolutionaries, went so far as to send on 10 August as apostolic delegate Monsignor Gaspare Grassellini, who, with prudent measures, restored order and was able to reactivate the military works of the fortress.
Because of the events that followed the reforms of Pius IX and his departure for Gaeta, Ancona became the scene of such unheard-of violence that the government of the Roman Republic sent Felice Orsini to attempt to remedy the situation. Livio Zambeccari then contested the city with the Austrians, who besieged it by land and sea from 28 May to 18 June 1849, with the aim of restoring it to the Pope, and who thereafter held a garrison there for a decade, notably improving the fortifications and striving, in conjunction with the governmental authorities, to thwart the subversive plots, among other things, of the Società Nazionale. Pius IX, acclaimed by the populace, stopped there during his triumphal journey through the provinces (22-25 May 1857), decreeing considerable public works, such as a new city wall and further impetus for the completion of a substantial arsenal, as well as significant measures to promote the free port.
After the Austrians had left A. on 12 June 1859 in the wake of Franco-Sardinian advances in Lombardy, the papal government was able to maintain its position there thanks to the cool-headedness of the apostolic delegate Monsignor Lorenzo Randi, the initiative of General Allegrini, the steadfastness of Major Zappi, and the repressive measures carried out with a good contingent of troops by General Schmidt, who occupied Perugia on 20 June, and General De Kalbermatten, who marched from Pesaro with several thousand men via Fano and Senigallia and arrived there on the 25th of the same month. Finally, on 25 March 1860, General Alfonso De Lamoricière disembarked in A., summoned by Pius IX to reorganize the papal army, and remained there for the following fervent and active months, also with the intention of putting it, as far as possible, in a state to offer effective resistance. Thus, after the battle of Castelfidardo (18 Sept. 1860), followed by a few brave men, Lamoricière succeeded, not without skill, in shutting himself up there and tenaciously holding out, coming to terms only after an honourable defence marked by valiant actions on both sides, when, above all, the powder magazine exploded on 29 Sept. Thus A. was definitively united to the new kingdom. — See Plates XCVIII–XCIX.