CAPUA, Archdiocese of. - In Campania, a short distance from the point where the Via Latina joins the Appian Way, C. must have received the Christian message quite early.
The church of C. had its martyrs, remembered in the Hieronymian Martyrology: Priscus, Lupulus, Sinotus, Marcellus, Rufus, Augustine and Felicity; the last two are said to have suffered martyrdom under Decius. In the present-day town of S. Prisco, near C., numerous Christian sepulchral inscriptions from the second half of the 4th century were found, and nearby was the Via Aquaria, on which St. Priscus, given by tradition as the first bishop of C., was celebrated on September 1. The Lib. Pont. informs us that Constantine founded a basilica in C., endowing it with liturgical furnishings and rich possessions. In the church of S. Prisco, until 1766, the 5th-century mosaics that decorated the apse and the dome were preserved. In the apse were depicted, in the act of bearing crowns, apostles, martyrs, and the local saints Priscus, Sinotus, Lupulus, Rufus, Marcellus, Augustine, Felicity; in the vault the symbolic dove amid eight volumes, symbol of the Gospels and of four prophets. In the dome, at the center, the divine throne; in the lower zones, prophets, apostles, evangelists, and the Campanian martyrs Hippolytus (Ipolistus), Canio, Augustine, Marcellus, Lupulus, Rufus, Artemas and Euphemus, Eutyches and Sossus, Festus and Desiderius. The chapel beside the church of S. Prisco, dedicated to St. Matrona, still shows the 5th-century mosaics. In the vault, at the corners, four large palms, and between them vine shoots with bunches of grapes and birds; on the perimeter walls, on one a medallion of Christ among vine shoots and tendrils, on the others the evangelical symbols, namely the winged man on one, and on another the ox and the eagle at the sides of a jeweled throne with the symbolic dove on the backrest and a volume on the cushion. Mention is also made of the mosaic decorations of the apse of S. Maria Maggiore, from the 5th century, in S. Maria Capua Vetere, and of the apse of the cathedral of new C., from the 11th-12th century, also vanished, the candelabrum of the paschal candle in the same Cathedral, the Exultet roll, the door of the church of S. Giovanni delle monache, the portal of S. Marcello Maggiore. Also very important are a Christian sarcophagus of the 4th century in the courtyard of the church of S. Marcello, a series of sepulchral inscriptions from the 4th-6th centuries, and the Lectionary of the codex Fuldensis of 546.
The episcopal series of the first six centuries is attested by reliable documents only from the first half of the 4th century: Protus or Praetorius (313), St. Germanus (519-20, 540-41), Victor (541-54). The best known is Victor, a contemporary of Cassiodorus and of Eugippius, the abbot of Lucullanum, above all for the codex Fuldensis revised by him in the years 546 and 547.
Under St. Gregory the Great, because of the Lombard invasion, which had devastated and depopulated the Campanian metropolis, the clergy of C. lived as refugees in Naples. Once this ceased, C. became part of the duchy of Benevento. In 787 Charlemagne, at the urging of Pope Adrian, offered the city of C. to St. Peter, and from then on it was counted among the possessions of St. Peter, more in name than in fact. When the duchy of Benevento was divided into the two principalities of Benevento and Salerno, the gastaldate or county of C. was included in the latter (847); but Landone succeeded in making his domain independent of Salerno. From 899, then, to 980 the count of C., having become prince, ruled C. and Benevento.
In 842, after C. was destroyed by the Saracens, the bishop and count Landulf transferred his residence to the new city, located about 5 km. from the old one, on the site of ancient Casilinum, on the banks of the Volturno. Landulf I was succeeded by Landulf II; but the count Pandulf forced him to move out and return to the old city; then he sent his brother Landonulf to Rome, so that he might be consecrated bishop of new C. Pope John VIII came to C. and divided the diocese of C. in two, consecrating Landulf II bishop of S. Maria Suricorum (old C., today S. Maria Capua Vetere), and assigning new C. to Landonulf. In 882, after Pandonulf and Landonulf were driven out, Landulf II returned there as sole bishop of the entire diocese; from then on the episcopal see was transferred to new C. on the Volturno. Here, meanwhile, under the episcopate of Landulf, the new Cathedral had arisen, consecrated by Otto and decorated with mosaics by Hugh. In 966 Pope John XIII, having come to C., elevated it to metropolitan see. Today it has as suffragans Isernia and Venafro, Calvi and Teano, Sessa Aurunca, Caserta, Cejazzo: it borders on Aversa, Cejazzo, Calvi and Teano. It has 110,000 souls; 63 parishes; 129 diocesan priests and 7 regulars (1948).
Of the ancient monasteries, the following should be remembered: S. Benedetto built by the Cassinese around 915; S. Lorenzo; S. Maria; S. Giovanni Battista, a women's monastery, founded by the Cassinese abbot Aligernus, in 967, in the house of a certain Landulf, son of Landonulf and husband of an Aloara. Of the ancient monasteries of the vicinity, S. Angelo in Formia is famous.
C. was the seat of three synods: at the first, Synodus plenaria Capuensis (392), St. Ambrose took part and set its guidelines; at the second, on 7 March 1087, Desiderius, abbot of Montecassino, accepted the papacy under the name Victor III (d. 16 Sept. 1087); at the third, 7 Apr. 1118, the emperor Henry V and the antipope Maurice Burdin (=Gregory VIII, 1118-21) were condemned. Near C., St. Anselm finished, in 1098, the Cur Deus homo.
Many prelates have brought distinction to the see of Capua; among the early ones Vincent, Victor, St. Germanus, then Cardinal St. Robert Bellarmine (1602-1605) and Cardinal Alfonso Capecelatro (1880-1912). Mention should also be made of Alessio Simmaco Mazzocchi (1684-1771), a distinguished archaeologist and philologist.
Of the sacred monuments of C., those of ancient times were for the most part destroyed in the 18th century, those of the Middle Ages during the last war.
Bibliography26 works
Domenico Mallardo