CASALE MONFERRATO, DIOCESE OF. - In Piedmont, province of Alessandria, on the right bank of the Po.
It is of Roman origin, according to some the Industria of Pliny; in the Middle Ages, from the name of its patron, it was called Casale S. Evasio; thus one reads, for example, in the diploma, dated 5 March 1186, of the emperor Frederick I, who takes under his protection those of Casalem S. Evasio (A. P. Frutaz, Un diploma dell'imperatore Federico I per C. M., in Riv. di storia, arte e archeologia di Alessandria, 46 [1937], pp. 5-10). C. was destroyed in 1215 by the Vercellese; rebuilt, it came into the power first of the marquises of Monferrato of the branch of the Alerami, then of the Visconti, then of the Monferrato of the branch of the Palaeologi, to pass to the Gonzaga of Mantua at the time of Charles V. After the siege of 1630 the Gonzaga regained it; from 1705 it belonged to the Savoy. Sixtus IV erected it into a diocese on 18 April 1474, suffragan of Turin. The first bishop was Bernardino Tibaldeschi (1474-1517). The archive of the diocese was destroyed by a fire in 1750. By the brief of Pius VII Beati Petri Apostolorum of 17 July 1817, C. became a suffragan of Vercelli. The diocese has an area of 1,200 sq km; it has 145 parishes with 259 diocesan priests and 131 regulars; the inhabitants number 142,000, of whom 141,900 are Catholics (1948).
The first mention of a church dedicated to St. Evasius in C. is found in a document of 12 May 974 of Bishop Ingone of Vercelli (F. Savio, Gli antichi vescovi d'Italia dalle origini al 1300, I, Piemonte, Turin 1899, pp. 117-24).
According to a tradition the church of St. Evasius would have been due to King Liutprand, whose anniversary was celebrated on 28 January in the oldest obituaries of the church itself. It is also believed that the building in its present entirety was consecrated by Pope Paschal II on 4 January 1107. In its structure it has analogies with the church of St. Michael and of St. Peter in Ciel d'oro in Pavia, and with St. Mary Major in Vercelli.
Characteristic is the atrium with intersecting arches and upper gallery, between two towers, contemporary with the rest of the construction. A fire devastated the building so much that a brief of Honorius III of 14 May 1218 enjoined the bishops of Vercelli, Turin and Asti to provide for the needs of the church of St. Evasius in C. (F. Savio, op. cit., p. 154). Reduced to a bad state, the building in 1856 was about to be demolished, but it was saved by the intervention of Abbot A. Rosmini and of the Casale native L. Canina (v.), to whom the restoration of the distinguished monument was to be entrusted, but he was struck by death. The restoration of the architect E. Arborio badly transformed the distinguished monument, of which there survive the atrium, some mullioned windows on the exterior and some floor mosaics in the interior, where one admires a silver crucifix of the 12th century and the tomb of Bishop Tibaldeschi by Sanmicheli. In the chapter archive the oldest documents go back to the 8th century; some illuminated liturgical books are preserved there. The church of St. Dominic erected by William VIII Palaeologus (1469) preserves its original structure.