Apt

APT. - City in the department of Vaucluse, on the river Coulon (France). It was founded by the Celtic tribe of the Vulgientes, occupied by the Romans at the end of the 2nd century B.C., and became the Roman colony Apta Iulia. It then passed under the Burgundians and afterwards to the Franks; it was a county in the 11th century and a municipality in the 12th. The date of the origins of the Christian Church in A. is uncertain; the most ancient testimony is offered by the presence at the Council of Arles (314) of a priest Romanus and an exorcist Victor delegated by the Church of A. In its episcopal fasti the names of bishops given as the most ancient by tradition, such as Auspicius, Leonius, etc., are not documented, and one must go down to the 5th century, when we find them taking part in the Councils of Riez (439), Orange (440), Vaison (442), etc. In the Middle Ages the bishop St. Stephen (1010-46) rebuilt the Cathedral. With the concordat of Napoleon I (1802), the greater part of the diocese passed under the archdiocese of Avignon, of which it now constitutes an archdeaconry (with 5 deaneries and 53 parishes) under the title of St. Anne and St. Veranus; while the upper valley of the Cavalon was united to the diocese of Digne.

In the diocese of A. four abbeys flourished; two male, one of St. Eusebius, near Saignon, founded in the 6th century, suppressed in the Napoleonic age, the other of Valsainte, near Banon, founded in 1188 and ceased in the second half of the 18th century. The two female abbeys were that of the Cistercians of St. Cross, founded in 1234 and suppressed during the French Revolution; that of St. Catherine of the Canonesses of St. Augustine, founded in 1299 and suppressed in 1748.

The cathedral of A., dedicated to St. Anne, is built over two superimposed crypts, of which the first shows remains of Roman constructions, the other belongs to the 11th century, like the greater part of the building, divided into three naves and completed partly in the 12th century, partly in the 14th, with restorations of the 17th century, to which age the octagonal chapel of St. Anne belongs.

It contains a sarcophagus of the 7th century and medieval sculptures. In the treasury a series of precious reliquaries and liturgical books. The episcopal palace (1745-80) is today reduced to a court and town hall.

Enrico Josi