Braganza (Bragança), Diocese of

BRAGANZA (BRAGANÇA), DIOCESE OF. - Ancient city of Portugal, in the province of Trás-os-Montes, at 685 m. of altitude on a hill that dominates a smiling plain. In the ancient nucleus of the city, on high, are the castle and the church of St. Mary, baroque; in the lower part, more recent, is found the Cathedral dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.

The diocese was erected on 10 July 1770 with the bull Pastoris aeterni of Clement XIV, by division from Miranda which, suppressed in 1780, with the bull Romanus Pontifex of Pius VI, was united to B. as suffragan of Braga. It has a surface of 6545 sq. km. and 213,870 inhabitants, almost all Catholic, with 315 parishes and 252 diocesan priests (1948). As far back as 1271 there is record of a convent of the Franciscans in B.

The college of the Jesuits was transformed into a seminary; suppressed in 1834 by the liberal revolution, it was restored in 1852, and later Msgr. Giuseppe Alvez de Mariz (1885-1912) brought further improvements to it, founding there a museum of natural history and a physics laboratory. After the destruction wrought there by the revolution of 1910, Msgr. A. Bento Martins Junior (1928-1932) built a new seminary. The spirit of insubordination that reigned in B. in certain epochs of its history is due probably, according to A. Pimenta, to the fact that the city was a center of Jews. B. has been a duchy since 1442. The head of the house ascended the throne of Portugal in 1640 under the name of John IV.

Giovanni Meseguer