Bressanone, Diocese of

BRESSANONE, Diocese of. - In Alto Adige, in the province of Bolzano. The city, at 560 m., lies in a sunny basin where the Rienza joins the Isarco.

In the second half of the 6th century we find existing among the Breuni, a Romanized population living in the Roman province of Raetia Secunda above Trento, a bishopric that had its center at Sabiona (near Chiusa on the Isarco) and depended on the metropolitan of Aquileia. It is difficult to say when Christianity was introduced into the territory of Alto Adige and its tributaries and of the Inn. The first bishop of whom there is record is a Materninus and then an Ingenuinus, who is known to us for the part he took in the schism of the Three Chapters in its most acute phase, at the end of the 6th century, and for the good memory he left of himself in a country tormented by invasions. After 591 there is no news of Sabiona and its bishops, but in all likelihood the series was not interrupted. In 769 in a document of Tassilo duke of Bavaria and then in 770 at the Synod of Dingolfing there appears as bishop an Alim, probably a Celt, who stands in relation with the Bavarian episcopate; at that time Sabiona was certainly not dependent on Aquileia. When, on 20 April 798, the metropolis of Salzburg was constituted by Pope Leo III, Sabiona was one of the bishoprics dependent on it. Scanty news is then had during the 9th century. On 13 Sept. 901 Louis, son of the emperor Arnulf, donated to bishop Zacharias the possession of Pristina-[Prichsna]-Brixen, that is, B. Around 975 we find Albuino "bishop of the church of Sabiona and B.", who enjoyed the favor of the emperors Otto II and Henry II and through donations, exchanges and purchases greatly increased the importance of his church in the valleys of the Isarco, Rienza and Inn and also in Carinthia, Bavaria and Carniola, where from Henry II he received the possession of Veldes on 10 April 1004. Albuino died on 5 February 1006 after having erected his Cathedral at B. with a capitular school. Among his first successors the best known is Poppo, elected pope in 1048 under the name Damasus II, d. 18 Aug. of that year. At B. was held in June 1080 the assembly of bishops in which sentence of deposition was pronounced against Gregory VII (v. below: COUNCIL of B.). In 1179 Frederick Barbarossa granted the bishops the dignity of princes of the empire, but their power was much limited by the predominance of the counts of Tyrol, and with these the famous Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, who was bishop of B. from 23 March 1450 to 16 Aug. 1464, had especially to struggle. Political events led in 1805 to the secularization of the principality; in 1818 a new circumscription was given to the diocese, which was enlarged in the Tyrol with territories belonging to the dioceses of Constance, Chur, Augsburg and Salzburg, and consequently on 16 June 1819 the general vicariate of Feldkirch in the Vorarlberg was established. After the Great War, following the Treaty of St-Germain (1919), the vicar general of Feldkirch was made apostolic administrator for the whole part of the bishopric that remained in the Austrian Republic (9 Apr. 1921), and then on 12 Dec. 1925 the apostolic administration of Innsbruck was established under a titular bishop; while from as early as 25 Apr. the bishop of B. had passed under the direct dependence of the Holy See.

The entire diocese according to the ancient frontiers in 1925 counted 488-532,000 souls with 508 districts of pastoral care; of these 394,722 depended on Feldkirch-Innsbruck.

The diocese of B. now has an area of about 4,279 sq. km. and a population of about 100,000 inhabitants, almost all Catholics, with 137 parishes, 244 diocesan priests and 121 regulars (1948).

Numerous religious institutes arose through the centuries within the ancient ambit of the diocese: particularly notable for its importance, at Innsbruck, is the "Canisianum" college of the Jesuits, who also hold the theological faculty at the university of that city.

Pio Paschini

ART

B. is one of the most important artistic centers of the Alto Adige. It preserves numerous medieval buildings from the Renaissance and the Baroque era. The Cathedral (St. Michael) dates back to the 13th century, but its interior was entirely renovated during the 18th century, on a design by Giuseppe Delaia, and its facade, completed in 1790, by G. Pirchstaller. The bell towers preserve elements of the original construction. In the cloister, founded in the 1200s and later modified in the 1300s, there are paintings from various periods between the 14th and 16th centuries, with figurations from the Old and New Testaments. Beside it is the baptistery of St. John with frescoes from the 13th and 14th centuries. Byzantine-style frescoes from the 13th century are also in the attic of the Collegiate church. In the diocesan museum there is a highly interesting collection of Alto Adige art and the treasury of the Cathedral with reliquaries and sacred vestments, among which, of particular value, is the chasuble of Bishop Hermann (1140-64), a 12th-century Byzantine fabric. Mention should also be made, besides some ancient churches, such as that of Sts. Hermann and Gotthard, of the palace of the Prince-Bishops, begun in the 13th century and remodeled several times, and the Renaissance-era Pfander house. Not far from B. is the ancient convent of Novacella, where there is a chapel (St. Michael) that dates back to the 11th century, a Gothic cloister and a rich library.

Emilio Lavagnino

COUNCIL OF BRESSANONE

By order of Henry IV, King of Germany, a few bishops of Germany (the Conciliabulum of B.) and a few from Italy gathered at B. on 25 June 1080, among them Card. Ugo Candido and Henry, Patriarch of Aquileia, to deliberate on the excommunication and deposition from the papal see to be inflicted on the then-reigning Gregory VII. And this was done, after a prior examination of the charges that the supporters of the said king, both lay and ecclesiastical, brought against the pope: 1st, that he had usurped the pontifical see through simony; 2nd, that he had subverted order and peace in the Church and the empire; 3rd, that he had called into question the Catholic faith concerning the Body and Blood of Christ, as Berengar of Tours, who had been his teacher, had once done.

To replace Gregory VII on the pontifical see, Guibert, Archbishop of Ravenna (v. CLEMENT III, antipope), was elected; he had already been excommunicated and deposed in 1078 by a Roman Council, for his irreligious life and for disobedience to the Holy See. This was a retaliation for the sentence of excommunication and deposition from the royal throne of Germany and Italy pronounced against Henry IV, who had been made a rebel and enemy of the Roman Church, a sentence pronounced by Gregory VII at the Roman Council of 7 March of that same year.

The illegality of the election of Clement III is beyond doubt: it contravened the decree of Nicholas II (1059), because only one cardinal had taken part in the election, and because neither the Roman clergy nor the Roman people had been consulted on the matter. To corroborate the twofold deliberation of the Conciliabulum, Pietro Grasso, a jurisconsult of Ravenna loyal to the king, composed a libel in which he opposed the principles of Roman law to the theses of the canonists, a new weapon that would be used with success in future conflicts.

Giovanni Soranzo