BENEVENTO, ARCHDIOCESE OF. – One of the largest archdioceses in southern Italy, with its see in a city rich in history that was once the capital first of a duchy, then of a principality, and later placed directly under the authority of the Holy See. Its suffragan dioceses are those of Sant'Agata dei Goti, Alife, Ariano, Ascoli Satriano and Cerignola, Avellino, Boiano, Bovino, Larino, Lucera, San Severo, Telese, Cerreto, and Termoli, located in Campania, Apulia, and Molise. The archdiocese of Benevento, situated mostly in the province of the same name (area 2,500 sq. km.) and partly in that of Avellino, borders the dioceses of Avellino, Ariano, and Cerreto, and the territory of the archdiocese of Conza. It has 160 parishes with 268 diocesan priests and 105 religious priests, and a population of about 335,000 (1948). Its patron is St. Bartholomew the Apostle.
OUTLINE:
I. History
II. Events from the late 1700s to 1860
III. Art
IV. Abbey of San Sofia
V. Beneventan conciliar region.I. HISTORY
On the slope of a hill called La Guardia (135 m.), at the confluence of the Calore and Sabato rivers, arose Malventum, the city that long waged war with Rome. Before becoming a Roman colony, it witnessed the victory of Curius Dentatus over Pyrrhus; the *bonus eventus* was preserved in the very name of the city, which from then on was called Beneventum.The first historically attested bishop is St. Januarius (v.), martyred during the persecution of Diocletian. The second, Theophilus, attended the Roman Council of 313. A second Januarius was a legate of the Pope at the Council of Sardica in 341. In 404 another bishop of Benevento carried a letter from Pope Innocent I to Constantinople in favor of St. John Chrysostom, addressed to Emperor Arcadius. The bishop St. Tammaro belongs to the second half of the 5th century; Epiphanius to the years 494–99 (cf. Jaffé-Wattenbach, 657, 736–37). In 545 the city was taken by Totila, who razed its walls. The Byzantine general Narses rebuilt it from its ruins, reducing it to a small village.
(La F. Carta, C. Cipolla, C. Frati, Atlante paleografico artistico, Torino 1939)