CIVITA CASTELLANA, ORTE, AND GALLESE, DIOCESES OF
In Lazio, in the province of Viterbo, immediately subject to the Holy See. The three united dioceses each boast a considerable antiquity. At Civita Castellana, which arose near ancient Falerii, Christianity, as throughout suburbicarian Tuscia, penetrated at a very early date, according to the hagiographical traditions of the region concerning the martyrs Gratiliano and Felicissima (BHL, 3630) and the presence of an ancient Christian cemetery discovered in 1880. In the *Passio* of St Mustiola (BHL, 4455, 4456), a St Felix is recalled who was martyred on 22 June in Falerii (Civita Castellana); the same martyr is found on 23 November 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 immediately following period information is lacking due to the deficiency of documents.
Within the diocesan territory of Civita Castellana were situated the once-famous abbeys of: S. Silvestro on Monte Soratte (ancient and distinguished for its historical memories), which in the 6th century 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 a monastic life; S. Maria di Falleri, of which the church of the 12th century fortunately remains, though not completely preserved, with its five apses: a typical Romanesque example of the Cistercian Order. Among the monuments, the most notable is without doubt the cathedral of S. Maria, which preserves the grand 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 Cosmas, constructed the splendid portico that precedes the façade and which in its central arch assumes aspects of new magnificence. This portico undoubtedly represents one of the highest points in the trajectory that connects the architectural art of classical antiquity with the Renaissance. In its central theme it truly prefigures the portico of the Pazzi Chapel in S. Croce in Florence by F. Brunelleschi.
The grand fortress of Civita Castellana was constructed by Alexander VI largely in the two-year period 1500–1501 (G. Zucchelli, *Un documento per la rocca di C.*, in *Palladio*, I [1938], p. 27). It has a pentagonal plan to which Julius II had Sangallo add the octagonal keep and four drawbridges.
The oldest documents of Civita Castellana were burned, so that the archives of the curia, the cathedral, and the city are now bereft of them.
To the diocese of Civita Castellana were united by Eugenius IV in 1437 that of Orte (v.) and by Pius VII the other of Gallese in 1505. Since 1925 the bishop of Civita Castellana has been delegated for the parishes of Ponzano Romano and S. Oreste, formerly belonging to the *abbazia nullius* of SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio alle Tre Fontane.
The three united dioceses comprise 33 parishes in 700 km² with 130 priests for 60,000 inhabitants (1948).
### Archaeology
In the portico of the cathedral many architectural and epigraphic fragments are gathered. Among these may be noted: a winged angel and a pluteus with fruits 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 881 of certain lands to the church of S. Maria and of two small houses to its mansionarii (CIL, XI, 466); the front of a Cosmatesque portal 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 canonries, 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, a work by an imitator of Agostino di Duccio (A. Muñoz, *Alcune sculture della cattedrale di C.*, in *Boll. d’arte*, 5 [1911], pp. 121–134). For Christian sarcophagi V. Wilpert, *Sarcofagi*, I, pl. 143, 3; II, pp. 293, 300, 309; III, pl. 244, 2, 3, 4, p. 25 ff.