BRESCIA, diocese of. - A city of the Cenomani, later a Roman colony (Brixia), it boasts notable monuments and inscriptions from the early centuries. Having declined during the barbarian invasions, it became the seat of a duchy that gave the Lombards their last kings: Astolfo, Desiderio, and Adelchi. Governed by counts (9th century), then by bishops (10th century), it became a commune (12th–13th centuries) of Guelph allegiance, passed under the lordships of the Visconti and the Scaligeri (14th century), then under those of P. Malatesta and Venice (1426–1796), and subsequently into the Cisalpine Republic, the Italic Kingdom, the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia (1815–59), and the Kingdom of Italy, with noble patriotic traditions.
The diocese is among the largest and oldest in Italy, already constituted at the beginning of the 4th century. The very late tradition (12th–13th centuries) of its apostolic origins through the preaching of St. Barnabas, and the obscure legends surrounding its first bishops and martyrs, cannot cast doubt on the existence of the diocese already in the 3rd century, after a long period of missionary activity. Christianity must have been introduced either by Jewish merchants—since there was a synagogue in Brescia—or by occasional missionaries. The cult of the two local martyrs, Faustinus and Jovita, even apart from the negative value of their late legend (BHL, 2836–38), is certainly very ancient, and their iconography until the 16th century always depicted them as a priest and a deacon, indicating in them the first leaders of a local church subject to Milan. The legend links the two Brescian martyrs with Emperor Hadrian (2nd century) and with many other bishops and martyrs of northern Italy (St. Apollonius of Brescia, St. Marcian of Tortona, St. Secundus of Asti, St. Calocerus of Albenga, etc.), demonstrating a very late and historically worthless hagiographic syncretism (8th or 9th century).
The Brescian church achieved its autonomy after the last persecution under Diocletian or in the early Constantinian age. St. Anatalon sent as its first bishop his disciple St. Clateus, the first name in the Brescian diptychs. It was the first diocese to separate from Milan; hence the bishop of Brescia held the first place on the right of the archbishop in the synods of the Milanese province, an honor that passed to the bishop of Vercelli only in the 11th century during the disturbances of the Investiture Controversy. The list of bishops, besides being drawn from the liturgical diptychs, was provided in the 9th century by a sermon of Bishop Rampertus, who enumerates his predecessors from St. Clateus. The fourth is St. Apollonius, the fifth St. Ursicinus (or Ursacius), who attended the Council of Sardica (343), the seventh St. Filastrius, who came from Rome to Milan and from Milan to Brescia to combat Arianism, and who held the see from 379 to 387. On the basis of these chronological indications, the beginning of Clateus’s episcopate can be fixed at the end of the 3rd century or the early 4th, with the relative dates also applying to the following bishops: St. Viator, St. Flavius Latinus, and St. Apollonius. Clateus, perhaps a Brescian citizen, would have been the last priest to govern the Brescian Church while it was still united and subject to Milan, and it is not unlikely that he had other predecessors in the same office in the 3rd century, when the hierarchical organization of Christianity in northern Italy was still in its formative stages.
The two great bishops of the 4th century are St. Filastrius (v.) and St. Gaudentius (v.), who left notable works and memories. After St. Gaudentius, the series of bishops proceeds regularly, except for the insertion by Ughelli of a Berticanus between Dominator and Paul III, confusing a Bertram, bishop of Le Mans in France (586–616), falsely attributed to the Cenomani of Brescia. From the 4th century, all the bishops up to St. Deusdedit of Diodatus (680) are venerated as saints in the local liturgy.
In the 8th century, the Lombard dukes and later kings Astolfo and Desiderio built new churches and monasteries in the city and diocese. It may have been in reflection of the work of the Brescian Petronax at Monte Cassino (717–50) that the two important monasteries of S. Giulia (753) and Leno (758) were founded, the former a female monastery in Brescia, the latter a male monastery in the Po Valley. Rampertus was the greatest bishop of the Carolingian era; he renewed the monastery of S. Faustus Maior with Frankish elements, revived popular devotion around the relics of the martyrs Faustinus and Jovita, built a new crypt in the cathedral of S. Maria, and transferred the body of St. Filastrius there, thereby reviving the common life of the urban clergy.
The bishops of the 9th and 10th centuries held high civil offices and came from powerful families of the local feudal aristocracy. Ardingo was archchancellor to King Berengar (901–922); Godfrey of Canossa, son of Adalbert Azzo, margrave of Tuscany (975–977), donated to the basilica of Canossa some relics of St. Apollonius; his successors Attone, Adalbert, Landulf, and Oderic were imperial vicars of the Brescian countryside. Bishop Adelmann of Liège, a disciple of St. Fulbert in the schools of Chartres, doubtless owed his election (1059) to imperial influence. Against the eucharistic heresy of his fellow bishop Berengar of Tours, he wrote the treatise *De Veritate Corporis et Sanguinis Christi* (PL 143, 1290 ff.).
Very eventful was the episcopate of Arimannus (1087–1116), cardinal of the Four Holy Crowned Martyrs, during the struggle between Church and Empire in the time of Gregory VII. He was probably the founder of the Vallumbrosan monastery of S. Gervaso del Mella, where he was buried. During the episcopates of his successors Vilan (1116–32) and Manfred (1132–53), the struggle between the two opposing political and religious factions was championed by the vehement preaching of the cleric or monk Arnold (v.), whom St. Bernard opposed. After the wars of Barbarossa and the Peace of Constance, the city expanded, numerous houses of the Humiliati were founded, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic with their Friars Minor and Preachers were welcomed into new popular quarters, and the artisan guilds and flagellant confraternities flourished anew. Bishop Bl. Guala of Bergamo, a Dominican (1229–44), vainly attempted to restore order and peace between Guelphs and Ghibellines and to reestablish episcopal authority, but political discord prevailed.
They forced him to retire to Bergamo, where he died on 3 September 1244 in the Vallumbrosan monastery of Astino. The last great medieval bishop was Berardo Maggi (1275–1308), son of the Roman senator Emmanuele Maggi and the last to be elected by the diocesan clergy. A man of high intelligence, iron will, and consummate diplomatic skill, he gathered into his hands, by the trust of the parties, both powers, and was prince of the diocese until his death.
In the 14th century, eighteen foreign bishops succeeded one another, almost always absent, who governed the diocese through foreign vicars; the diocese was in complete decline.
The new Venetian government, with the humanist and diplomat Pietro del Monte (1442–47), began the long series of bishops drawn from the Venetian patriciate down to Mons. Giovanni Nani (1773–1804); the only exception was the contested appointment of the Brescian cardinal Duranti (1551–57).
Many bishops received the cardinal’s hat, such as the Roman Agapito Colonna (1369), Francesco and Andrea Cornaro (1532–50), Duranti, Morosini (1585–96), nuncio to France, Pietro Ottoboni (1654–1664), who became Pope Alexander VIII, Marco Dolfin (1698–1704), Giovanni Badoaro (1706–14), Gianfrancesco Barbarigo (1714–23), the Benedictine A. M. Quirini (1725–55), munificent founder of the Queriniana Library, and Giovanni Molin (1755–73). The Brescians Arimanno and Ottone (11th century), Uberto and Gianfrancesco Gambara (16th century), Giovanni Andrea Acehetti and Michelangelo Luchi (18th century) also received the purple.
The diocese does not coincide with the boundaries of the province; it includes Lovere, Costa Volpino, and Palosco in the Bergamasque area, while the Valtenesi, from Lonato and San Felice to Sirmione and Pozzolengo, though in the province of Brescia, is subject to the diocese of Verona. Until the 18th century it included the territory of the former diocese of Asola and the marquisate of Castiglione delle Stiviere, united to the diocese of Mantua in 1785.
Today the diocese has 421 parishes divided into 78 vicariates, with 985 priests and 720,400 souls, four diocesan seminaries, numerous male religious houses (Carmelites, Franciscans, Conventuals, Capuchins, Jesuits, Salesians, Marists, Combonians, Pavonians, Artigianelli, Josephines) with their own seminaries, and many female religious houses, four Catholic publishing houses, a weekly newspaper, and numerous periodicals of a religious character. The oldest monasteries were those of St Benedict of Leno, of the Saviour and of St Julia, of SS Cosmas and Damian or monasterium Honori, of St Peter in Monte Orsino at Serle, of St Euphemia, of St Faustinus Major, of St Thomas of Acquanegra, of St Gervasius at the Mella, of St Mary of the Dove at Manerbio, of St Mary of Peace, of St Domninus of Verola, of St Peter of Fiumicello, of St Vigilius of Masserata—all of the Benedictine Rule; numerous too were the Cluniac priories erected in the 11th century, which had their central house at Rodengo; also numerous were the Augustinian canonries and priories of Augustinian hermits, founded in the 11th century, the houses of the Humiliati erected in the 12th century, and the convents of Franciscans and Dominicans that flourished in the 13th–16th centuries, just as in the 17th–18th centuries houses and colleges of Jesuits, Somaschi, and Theatines flourished, all dispersed in 1797 by the Jacobin revolution.
The principal archives of the diocese are the archive of the episcopal table, the archive of the curia, and the chapter archive, but they have suffered very serious losses, especially in regard to medieval documents, which are almost entirely missing; the State Archive and the municipal historical archive preserve ecclesiastical records. The archives of the religious corporations suppressed in 1797 were dispersed, and the surviving papers were arbitrarily divided between the State Archive of Milan, the State Archive of Brescia, and the Queriniana Civic Library. The archives of the Civil Hospital and of the Pious Places contain in part the documents of the monasteries of St Euphemia and of Rodengo, of the convent of St Dominic, and of the Inquisition. P. Kehr, *Italia pontificia*, VI, part 1, Berlin 1913, pp. 307–55, has given copious bibliographical indications of many archives and unpublished sources of diocesan history.
Brescia has two museums: one of the Roman age in the basilica of Vespasiano, and one of the Christian age in the church of St Julia. Both are rich in notable monuments and precious relics. Famous is the bronze statue of Victory, unearthed in 1826; in the Christian Museum are preserved the diptychs, the lipsanotheca, the cross known as that of Galla Placidia, goldsmith work and medieval sculpture, a rich medal collection, etc. The city also has a picture gallery, a notable collection of ancient and modern art.
Among the numerous and sumptuous churches, decorated with precious paintings by the great masters Titian, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, Romanino, Foppa, Moretto, etc., one should recall the Lombard basilica of St Saviour (8th century) and St Mary in Solario (11th century), the Old Cathedral or Rotunda of St Mary the Winter Cathedral (11th century), modelled on the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, the church of St Francis (13th century), the façade of the sanctuary of St Mary of Miracles with exquisitely sculpted Renaissance work (15th century), and the New Cathedral (17th–19th centuries), by the Brescian architect Lantana. — See Plate IV.
Paolo_Guerrini
Brescia – St Margaret between St Jerome and St Francis by Moretto da Brescia (1530) – Church of St Francis.