DIOCESE OF APUANIA. - In Tuscany, in the province of A., with a population of 200,000 inhabitants spread over an area of 1,155 sq km. It has 215 parishes with 234 priests.
A. is an urban center established in 1939 through the merger of the two neighboring cities of Massa and Carrara, both situated in the pleasant basin at the foot of the Apuan Alps: Massa at the mouth of the Frigido valley, Carrara on the two banks of the Carrione. Before the 9th century Massa was a small village in the territory of Luni, which the inhabitants of that city chose as their refuge when they were forced to flee because of the raids of corsairs. Carrara, which traces its origin to the first works at the marble quarries of Luni, was the central point of the quarries and became the domicile of the workers; a college of marble workers must have existed there already in the Roman era. 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 abbatia nullius under the government of the prior of the Canons Regular Lateranense of St. Frediano of Lucca, with all abbatial rights. On 18 February 1821, through the efforts 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 determined its territorial boundaries and subjected it to the metropolitan jurisdiction of Pisa. On 20 July 1939 the diocese of Massa Carrara took the name of the recently established urban center, calling itself A.
Bibliography
Benedetto Pesci