ATANASIO di NAPOLI, saint. — Bishop of Naples from 22 December 849 to 15 July 872; son of the celebrated Neapolitan duke Sergio and his wife Drosa, he was born, according to the anonymous Vita (ed. G. Waitz, p. 442), in 832. He succeeded Bishop Giovanni, who died in 849, when he was barely eighteen. He led an austere private life; he attended to the literary education of his clergy; he was lavishly charitable toward the poor and the churches of his city, which he restored with munificence, among them S. Gennaro and the Stefania. He took part in the Roman Synod of 861. He suffered greatly at the hands of his nephew, Duke Sergio, who even attempted to force him to renounce the episcopate; having withdrawn to the island of Nisida, he was freed through the intervention of Ludovico II. A. then lived in exile at Sorrento (867–72), where Stefano, his brother, was bishop; nevertheless, he intervened with Adriano II so that the excommunication imposed on Naples might be lifted, since its people had supported Sergio; but on the return journey from Rome, he fell ill at Veroli
and died in the oratory of S. Quirico near Montecassino, on 15 July 872. Initially buried in that abbey, he was taken to Naples and placed in S. Gennaro extra moenia on 1 August 877 by his successor Atanasio II, his nephew. In the thirteenth century he was then transferred to the Cathedral, a translation commemorated on 5 April. Feast: 15 July.