AQUINO-SORA-PONTECORVO, DIOCESE of. — In the province of Frosinone, immediately subject to the Holy See. It has 191,000 inhabitants, distributed among 88 parishes. The diocesan priests number 159. Residence of the bishop: Sora. Patrons: of A., St. Costanzo; of S., St. Restituta (to be identified, according to Lanzoni, with the African martyr); of P., St. John the Baptist.
A., a colony of the Hernici and later a Roman municipium, was the birthplace of Juvenal; St. Thomas was born (1226) in the nearby castle of Roccasecca. The establishment of the bishopric is certain from the fifth century. A. was destroyed several times by pestilence and military events; the last time in 1250, by order of Conrad IV.
S., an ancient Volscian city, was a Roman colony and municipium, and the birthplace of Atilius Regulus. From Byzantine rule it passed to that of the Lombards of Benevento, and then (787) to that of the Popes, the dukes of Spoleto, and the Normans. It was destroyed by Frederick II. The establishment of the diocese is traced back to the third century, but the episcopal succession begins in 1221.
P., founded at the end of the ninth century, passed at the beginning of the thirteenth to the Benedictines of Montecassino and subsequently became dependent on the territory of Benevento. In 1725 Benedict XIII raised the collegiate church of P., where the bishop and the seminary already resided, to cathedral status, and united it, aeque principaliter, with A., by then deserted. In 1818, when the dioceses of the Kingdom of Naples were reorganized, Pius VII united the bishopric of S. to it with equal status. The bishop bears the three united titles.
The Benedictine abbey of S. Domenico di S. was founded by St. Dominic of Foligno, who died there in 1031 and is buried there.