ARIANO, Diocese of.
In the Irpinia region, province of Avellino, a suffragan of Benevento, the diocese comprises 24 parishes, 44 diocesan priests and 9 regulars. Area of the diocese: 463 sq. km.; population: 62,000 inhabitants, almost all Catholic, of whom about 21,000 in the town of Ariano. Patron saint: St. Otto.
A centre of the Irpini, it merged with a Roman stopping-place on the Via Appia Traiana, whence the name Ara Iani. It became a county under the Lombards, was then conquered by the Normans and made by Roger II the seat of a parliament (1140). In the 13th century it was given by Charles of Anjou as a fief to the Vaudémont; in the 15th century it passed to the Attendolo Sforza and later to the Carafa. Severely damaged by earthquakes and eruptions of Vesuvius (1546, 1781, 1930), it always rose again. Legendary is the tradition that makes St. Peter its evangelizer. No traces exist of the erection of the bishopric until the 10th century; at the Roman Council of 969, John XIII subjected to the archbishop of Benevento some dioceses of the region, among them Ariano. The first bishop of whom we have certain news is Meinard of Poitiers (1070). The cathedral was erected by Bishop Nicola degli Ippoliti, completed and consecrated by Bishop Diomede Carafa in 1512; the seminary was founded in 1504.