SPOLETO, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - The archdiocese of S. comprises a vast territory situated in the provinces of Perugia, Terni and Rieti; it borders on the dioceses of Todi, Terni, Rieti, Norcia and Foligno. It has 110,000 inhabitants, of whom 108,000 are Catholics, 173 parishes with 144 diocesan priests and 75 regulars. There are 13 houses of male Orders and religious congregations and 43 of female ones; in the chief town is the Generalate House of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family. It has the minor Seminary (the major one is in Assisi); its patron is St. Ponziano martyr, whose feast falls on 14 January. It was immediately subject to the Holy See and was the first Umbrian diocese to be erected into an archdiocese in 1820. The archbishop of S. is perpetual commendatory abbot of S. Croce di Sassovivo and as such has the right of appointment of certain holders of parishes existing in other dioceses.
I. HISTORY
The history of S. for the period before the Roman conquest is extremely uncertain owing to the scarcity of information: it is known only that it was an Umbrian center and traces of this are found on the acropolis, while any subjection to the Etruscans would appear to be ruled out.
The Romans established a colony there in 241 B.C., which later proved to be among the most loyal, since only a few years afterward, in 217 B.C., Hannibal was halted here in his march toward Rome: this famous episode, despite the silence of some sources, is now accepted by the leading modern historians. In 90 B.C. the colony became a municipium and throughout the Empire enjoyed a flourishing life, as the numerous remains of buildings from this period show. Its importance grew in the Constantinian age and above all during the Gothic War, when because of its natural position the city constituted a strong and much-contested stronghold: and the crowning of this rise was the choice the Lombards made of it in 570 as the seat of a duchy.
On the origin of the Spoletan episcopal see information is scarce, and the examination of the sources requires great circumspection because of the frequent corruptions and interpolations. None of the martyrs whom tradition and the sources attribute to the city (Gregory, Pontian, Sabinus, Concordius are the principal ones) was a bishop, and the first prelate of whom there is certain record was Cacilianus (353), but strong probabilities exist in favor of a Laurentius called "Illuminator" who would have lived at the end of the 3rd century, and in that case this could be the period of the birth of the Spoletan episcopal see, whereas the propagation and spread of the faith in Umbria is claimed to go back even to apostolic or sub-apostolic times. Tradition, but without foundation, would have a St. Brictius consecrated by the Apostles as the first bishop of Spoleto. Among the most ancient are known the bishops St. Spes (end of the 4th century), called the Damasus of Umbria, and Achilles (5th century) who built the church of St. Peter extra moenia. As a reflection of the growing political influence of S., the jurisdiction of the diocese also expanded, and various nearby episcopal sees ceased to exist and were incorporated into that of Spoleto, which thus became very extensive: Bevagna, Norcia, Trevi, Spello, and for a time Terni and Rieti.
But far more extensive was the jurisdiction of the Lombard duke when the boundaries of the Duchy reached the Musone toward the Pentapolis, the Tiber toward Tuscia, the Aterno, Lake Fucino and the Aniene toward Benevento and the Roman Duchy. Because of the strategic importance of the territory subject to it, because of the distance from Pavia which favored the autonomy of its duke, and above all because of its proximity to Rome, in whose affairs the Spoletan faction often had to interfere, this was the most glorious period of the city, which passed from the Lombards to the Franks and then saw its dukes Guy and Lambert assume from 889 to 898 the crown of king of Italy and emperors.
After the 10th century the alternating fortunes of the struggles between Papacy and Empire had repercussions in S., which wavered now toward one side, now toward the other, but with a prevalence toward the Papacy, especially at the time of Countess Matilda, until 1155, which was the fatal year for the city, which, having rebelled against Frederick Barbarossa, was destroyed by him and, besides losing its splendid monuments, never rose again to its past greatness; the prevalence of the Ghibelline party brought in those years a schismatic bishop, Witeclinus, to the Spoletan see, and men loyal to the Empire to the head of the Duchy.
After the accession of Innocent III, the Duchy, by then reduced to modest boundaries comprising lower Umbria and the Sabina, passed definitively to the Church, which sent its Rectors there, while the free Commune developed vigorously; and as the seat of the Rectors, toward the middle of the 14th century, Cardinal Albornoz erected the mighty Rocca, which was an impregnable bulwark in defense of the Papal States. In the 15th-16th centuries the Rectors were often relatives of the popes (Lucrezia Borgia, 1499-1501), and subsequently they were apostolic protonotaries and referendaries of the Signatura. In 1798 S. was the capital of the Department of the Clitunno and subsequently, after the brief restoration, in 1809, the capital of the very extensive Department of Trasimeno. It was then, until 1860, the capital of a pontifical Delegation.
To govern the important diocese, in the 17th-18th centuries, cardinals were often called as well (1608-17 Maffeo Barberini, later Urban VIII). In 1586 Pieve Torina was detached from it and united to Camerino, in 1772 Spello was united to Foligno, and in 1820 Norcia was again erected as an episcopal see; in compensation S. was elevated to archiepiscopal see and its archbishop received the title of perpetual commendatory abbot of S. Croce di Sassovivo: from 1827 to 1832 the archdiocese was governed by Giovanni Mastai Ferretti, later Pius IX. Annibale della Genga, Leo XII (1823-29), belonged to an ancient Spoletan family.
II. MONUMENTS
A history so rich and varied explains how S. and its territory can boast today a notable complex of monuments. Among the most important from the Roman period, besides substantial remains of walls from various eras and a rich harvest of inscriptions largely collected in the Museo civico, are the arch of Drusus and Germanicus (23 A.D.), the theater (beginning of the 1st century A.D.), the Ponte Sanguinario (1st century A.D.), the amphitheater (2nd century A.D.), and the house known as that of Vespasia Polla (beginning of the 1st century A.D.).
To the early Christian era date the basilica of S. Salvatore and the tempietto del Clitunno, in the surroundings of the city: according to the most authoritative art scholars, the dating of these two monuments is to be assigned to the end of the 4th century-beginning of the 5th for the Basilica and to the advanced 5th century for the tempietto.
Notable is the complex of Romanesque monuments. First of all the Duomo, in which Gregory IX canonized (1232) St. Anthony of Padua: risen on an older church, the present construction dates to the 12th century (the bell tower is from the 10th century), but the portico is Renaissance (15th century) and the interior was completely redone in the 17th century; it still preserves in the apse's conch the last fresco of Filippo Lippi, who died and was buried here. Also important are S. Pietro for its facade adorned with 12th-century sculptures, S. Gregorio (11th century) recently restored, S. Domenico (12th century), SS. Giovanni e Paolo (11th century) in which is preserved a fresco attributed to Cavallini that is one of the first depicting St. Francis, S. Giuliano (11th century), near Monteluco, which was in every age a hearth of ascetics and preserves numerous hermitages, S. Eufemia (12th century).
Among civic monuments, of the greatest interest is the Ponte delle Torri, the most characteristic of S., and the Rocca built, at the wish of Cardinal Albornoz, by Gattapone da Gubbio around the middle of the 14th century. Of lesser importance are the monuments of the subsequent eras, when S. had lost much of its importance. The city is still a lively center of studies and its Accademia degli Ottusi is well known, whose foundation dates back, according to tradition, to Pontano, and at which an Italian Center for Studies on the High Middle Ages has been established.
The city is dominated to the southeast by the green mass of Monteluco (814 m.), an ancient forest of centuries-old holm oaks that was a «lucus sacer» in Roman times and, subsequently, a refuge of ascetics from the 4th century onward: among the best known are St. John of Antioch and St. Isaac (v.) the Syrian, who testify to interesting relations with the East. On the summit, St. Francis built in 1218 a small convent later enlarged by St. Bernardino of Siena and in subsequent eras; this convent and, along the slopes of the mountain, numerous hermitages, today transformed into small villas, have hosted over the centuries a great number of visitors who found rest and serenity there, and among whom are remembered, besides the saints already named, St. Bonaventure, St. Anthony of Padua, the blessed Leopold of Gaiche, Paul III, Pius IX, Clarice Orsini, Michelangelo.
Among the most important centers of the archdiocese are: Trevi (v.), Bevagna (v.), Montefalco, which in the church of S. Francesco preserves a pictorial cycle of the life of the saint by Benozzo Gozzoli, a Nativity by Perugino and numerous other works by Umbrian painters of the Renaissance; the sanctuary of the Madonna della Stella, erected in the second half of the 19th century, and the abbey of S. Pietro in valle di Ferentillo, founded by the dukes of S. in the 8th century. - See plates LXXV-LXXVI.
Bibliography25 works
Giovanni Antonelli