BOSA, DIOCESE OF. - A city in western Sardinia, in the province of Nuoro, in the lower valley of the Temo River, 5 km from the sea.
It is a suffragan diocese of the metropolitan see of Sassari. It covers a territory of 741.45 sq km, bounded to the north and east by the diocese of Alghero, to the south by the archdiocese of Oristano, and to the west by the sea, with a total population of 35,524 inhabitants, all Catholic. It has 21 parishes, served by 46 diocesan priests and 22 religious.
B., mentioned imprecisely by Ptolemy,
had Carthaginian origins. Later it became a Roman municipium with its own magistrates. Christianity and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, introduced into Sardinia from the earliest centuries of the Christian era, have left no traces regarding B. It probably already had its own bishop in the time of St Gregory the Great; but the first historically known is Peter I (1112).
The diocese has had distinguished prelates, such as Giovanni di Casanova (1424), created cardinal by Martin V; Niccolò Canelles (d. 1585), who introduced printing to Sardinia; Giov. Franc. Fara (d. 1592), the father of Sardinian history; Giov. Ant. Còssu (d. 1796), who established the diocesan seminary. B. hosted several religious orders: the Benedictines at Tharricellu or Ferrucci (12th cent.); the Camaldolese at St Peter’s, Scano Montiferro (1112); the Cistercians at St Mary’s, Capo d’Acque near Sindia (1145); the Hospitallers at St Leonard’s near Santo Lussurgiu (whose historical memory dates back to 1355); the Observant Franciscans at St Mary’s, Santo Lussurgiu (1470); the Servites at Cuglieri (1540); the Carmelites at B. (1608) and at Cuglieri (1610); the Jesuits at B. (1681); the Piarists founded the Carta-Meloni boarding school at Santo Lussurgiu in 1843; they were succeeded by the Salesians in 1922.
Among the monuments to be noted are the fine cathedral, the ancient St Leonard’s, a national monument, the basilica of Cuglieri rich in marble; noteworthy also are the churches of St Peter’s and St Anthony’s extra muros, both Romanesque, with façades from the 14th cent. At Cuglieri Pius XI in 1927 began the grand Pontifical Sardinian Seminary with a faculty of theology, equipped with a large library; it is entrusted to the Jesuits.