CESENA, DIOCESI. — In Emilia, in the province of Forlì, suffragan of Ravenna. The Cesena episcopal lists prior to the sixth century do not rest on solid historical foundations, and the first bishop of whom there is any record is Natale, from the second half of the sixth century, followed by a Concordio in 603; both are remembered in a letter of St. Gregory the Great and Mariniano, bishop of Ravenna (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 1919). Probably dependent on Ravenna from that period onward, it certainly was in 649, when it formed part of the exarchate.
Among the other prelates of C. who are mentioned, the following should be recalled: Floro, present at the Roman Synod of 680 under Pope Agatho; St. Mauro, protector of C., who held the see in the tenth century and whose life was written by St. Pier Damiani; his successor, a nephew of his named Costanzo; Bishop Giovanni II, to whom St. Pier Damiani sent the treatise De parentelae gradibus; Gebizo, formerly a monk and abbot of the monastery of the SS. Bonifacio and Alessio de Urbe, legate of Gregory VII and made a cardinal by him; Benno de' Cocliti, who died in 1149, also a cardinal, employed by Honorius II on various legations. Until the eleventh century it formed part of the patrimony of the Holy See; thereafter it was governed as a free commune. After the fall of the Hohenstaufen, C. once again became part of the papal possessions, subsequently passing under the rule of the Ordelaffi, who were driven out by Cardinal Albornoz in 1357. After the sackings suffered during the expedition of Roberto di Ginevra, sent by Gregory XI to subjugate the city, C. finally enjoyed a period of prosperity under the Malatesta, who governed it for a century (1378–1466). To make the new fortress of C. more spacious, Galeotto Malatesta had the Cathedral situated on Mount Garampo demolished in 1385; his successor Andrea later had it rebuilt on its present site (1408–12). C. once again came under papal rule during the pontificate of Julius II, from whom it received municipal statutes under which the city was governed until the advent of the French Revolution. The diocese, small in territorial extent, was considerably enlarged by Pius VI in 1777 with new parishes removed from the jurisdiction of Rimini.
Among the bishops who in relatively recent times brought distinction to the see of C. should be recalled Pietro Francesco Orsini (1680–86), who later became Pope Benedict XIII; Cardinal G. C. Denhoff (1686–97); Cardinal Carlo Bellisomi (1795–1808), a candidate for the tiara in the Conclave of 1799; and Cardinal S. F. Castiglioni, later Pope Pius VIII.
Pius VI and Pius VII were from C.
Among the monasteries of the diocese, the following were once famous: that of the SS. Lorenzo and Zenone, known since the time of Gregory the Great and governed by the Benedictines until 1402; the monastery of S. Maria del Monte, or Monte di S. Mauro, of very ancient though uncertain origin, also Benedictine, in which Bishop St. Mauro was buried in 946; confirmed in 1244 by Innocent IV to the bishop of Cervia, united by Nicholas V in 1453 with the Congregation of S. Giustina of Padua, and restored in 1814 and in 1887.
The diocese covers 400 sq. km., has 64 parishes, 126 diocesan priests and 51 religious priests, and 90,000 Catholics out of a population of 97,000 (1948). — Vedi Tav. LXXXIII.