ATELLA. - An ancient episcopal see in Campania, between Naples and Capua, whose ruins emerge in the territory comprised between the villages of S. Arpino, Grupo and Pomigliano d'A. Some bronze coins, later than 250 B.C., and some painted vases documented the Samnite civilization of A. which, subjected by the Romans, rebelled after the battle of Cannae, but was punished for it with extermination and political and territorial annihilation. In 63 B.C. it appears again among the most important cities of Campania. A. gave its name to spectacles of importance or at least of Greek influence through the Oscans, at the origins of Latin theater: "Fabulae atellanae".
The first testimony of certain date that refers to the episcopal see of A. is provided by St. Gregory the Great who, in two letters of 592 (Registr., II, ep. 16) and of 599 (Registr., IX, ep. 142), names a certain Importunus as bishop "Atellanae civitatis"; but the origins are undoubtedly more remote, if in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, under 25 May, the deposition in A. of a martyr Canio is recorded. A Passio s. Canionis (BHL, 1541) informs us about the episcopal rank and about the martyrdom endured in A. by Canio, just as it also relates that a bishop of A., by the name of Elpidius, would have built a basilica over the tomb of the martyr. Elpidius, from another Passio (BHL, 2520 b), is said to be a contemporary of Pope Siricius (384-99) and of the emperor Arcadius (395-408). The cathedral of A. in the 9th century was dedicated to a St. Elpidius who must not be different from the bishop mentioned above. During the Lombard invasion the episcopal see of A. declined; the last bishop we know of is Eusebius who subscribed the acts of the Lateran Council celebrated under Martin I in 649 (Mansi, X, p. 867). In 1049 Pope Leo IX reestablished the bishopric of A. with a new see in the city of Aversa (v.), recently built by the Norman prince Robert Guiscard.
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Benedetto Pesci