### APUANIA, Diocese of
In Tuscany, in the province of Apuania, with a population of 200,000 inhabitants spread over an area of 1,155 sq. km. It has 215 parishes with 234 priests.
Apuania is an urban center established in 1939 through the merger of the two neighboring cities of Massa and Carrara, both situated in the picturesque valley at the foot of the Apuan Alps: Massa at the mouth of the Frigido valley, Carrara on the banks of the Carrione. Before the 9th century, Massa was a small village in the territory of Luni, which its inhabitants chose as a refuge when forced to flee due to pirate raids. Carrara, whose origins trace back to the early marble quarries of Luni, was the central point of the quarries and became the residence of the workers; a guild of marble workers likely existed there even in Roman times. It was sometimes the residence of the bishops of Luni, to whose jurisdiction it belonged. From the 11th to the 18th century, it was considered an *abbazia nullius* under the governance of the prior of the Lateran Canons Regular of S. Frediano in Lucca, with all the rights of an abbey. On February 18, 1821, through the intercession of Beatrice d'Este, lady of Massa and Carrara, Pius VII decreed the canonical erection of the Diocese of Massa Carrara with the bull *Singularis*. This erection was confirmed by his successor Leo XII, who defined its territorial boundaries and placed it under the metropolitan jurisdiction of Pisa. On July 20, 1939, the Diocese of Massa Carrara took the name of the newly constituted urban center, becoming the Diocese of Apuania.