CIVITA CASTELLANA, ORTE E GALLESE, DIOCESE OF. - In Lazio, in the province of Viterbo, immediately subject to the Holy See. The three united dioceses each boast a notable antiquity. At C. C., which arose near ancient Falerii, Christianity, as throughout the suburbicarian Tuscia, penetrated very early, judging by the hagiographic traditions of the region concerning the martyrs Gratilianus and Felicissima (BHL, 3630) and by the presence of an ancient Christian cemetery discovered in 1880. In the Passio of St. Mustiola (BHL, 4455, 4456) a St. Felix is recalled, martyred on 22 June in Falisca (C. C.); the same martyr is found under 23 Nov. in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum (p. 617) immediately after Mustiola. The episcopal see, with the certain names of the first bishops, already appears at the end of the 5th century, while for the period immediately following there is no information owing to the scarcity of documents.
Within the diocesan territory of C. C. were situated the once famous abbeys of: S. Silvestro on Monte Soratte, ancient and distinguished for its historical memories; in the 6th century it was directed by St. Nonnosus, so popular in the accounts of St. Gregory the Great, and in the 8th century the Frankish prince Carloman retired there to monastic life; S. Maria di Falleri, of which the 12th-century church, with its five apses, has fortunately survived, though not completely preserved: a typical Romanesque example of the Cistercian Order. Of the monuments, the most conspicuous is undoubtedly the cathedral of S. Maria, which preserves the grandiose crypt supported by 45 columns. It was rebuilt after the 11th century; the portal is by Jacopo di Lorenzo, who in 1210, in collaboration with his son Cosma, built the splendid portico that precedes the façade and that in the central arch takes on aspects of new magnificence. This portico undoubtedly represents one of the highest points of the trajectory that links the architectural art of classical antiquity with the Renaissance. In its central theme it truly preludes the portico of the Pazzi Chapel, at S. Croce in Florence, by F. Brunelleschi.
The grandiose fortress of C. C. was built by Alexander VI, for the most part in the two years 1500-1501 (G. Zucchini, Un documento, per la rocca di C., in Palladio, 1 [1938], p. 27). It has a pentagonal plan, to which Julius II had Sangallo add the octagonal keep and the four drawbridges.
The most ancient documents of C. C. have been burned, so that the archives of the curia, of the cathedral and of the city have been stripped of them.
To the diocese of C. C. was united by Eugene IV in 1437 that of O. (v.) and by Pius VII the other of G. in 1803. Since 1925 the bishop of C. C. is delegate for the parishes of Ponzano Romano and S. Oreste, formerly belonging to the nulline abbey of SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio alle Tre Fontane.
The three united dioceses comprise 33 parishes in 700 sq km, with 130 priests for 60,000 inhabitants (1948).
Bibliography4 works
Serafino Prete
For O. and G., see: GALLESE, DIOCESI di; ORTE, DIOCESI di. ARCHAEOLOGY. - In the portico of the Cathedral many architectural and epigraphic fragments are gathered. Among these are remembered: a winged angel and a pluteus with interlace and rosettes, perhaps from the primitive schola cantorum (8th-9th centuries); a flat relief with hunting scenes, perhaps originally the front of a sarcophagus (8th century); an inscription recalling the donation by Bishop Leo in '88 of certain estates to the church of S. Maria and of two small houses to the mansionarii of the same (CIL, XI, 466); the frame of a Cosmatesque portal coming from the church of S. Francesco; tomb slabs, one of which belongs to Niccolò de Summa of Naples (d. 1403), who founded in the Cathedral the eight canons, so that from then on it was also called "the church of the eight"; fragments of a marble pulpit with the representation of Fortitude and Justice, the work of an imitator of Agostino di Duccio (A. Muñoz, Alcune sculture della cattedrale di C., in Boll. d'arte, 5 [1911], pp. 121-34). For the Christian sarcophagi see Wilpert, Sarcofagi, I, pl. 143, 3; II, pp. 293, 300, 309; III, pl. 244, 2, 3, 4, p. 25 ff.