COLLE VAL D’ELSA, DIOCESE OF. - In Tuscany, province of Siena, suffragan of Florence. The origins of this diocese are to be sought in the two parish churches of St. Salvatore (de Colle) and of Sts. John, Faustinus and Jovita (de Elsa), the property of the Apostolic See, which were subjected by Clement III in 1188 to the bishop of Volterra. But as the disputes of the archpriests of C. with Volterra increased more and more, in 1356 both parish churches were declared nullius dioecesis. Later, also because of the marked growth of the population and the increase of industrial life, Clement VIII in 1592 declared C. a city and raised it to an episcopal see, assigning it territories of the neighboring dioceses; in 1782 Pius VI annexed St. Gimignano to it. From the beginning until today the diocese of C. has been a suffragan of Florence.
In the diocese of C. V. d'E. was situated the abbey of St. Salvatore di Spugna, founded in the 11th century near C., ceded in the 14th century to the Vallombrosans and in the 15th century in commendam to the hospital of the Innocents in Florence; in 1592 it was finally incorporated into the new diocese of C. V. d'E. and assigned to its episcopal mensa.
The Cathedral is a 17th-century building (1603). A construction worthy of note is the Vallombrosan abbey of St. Maria a Conco, today abandoned, not far from the city: a typical Romanesque building, of Pisan style. The parish church of Sts. Hippolytus and Cassian, of the 11th century, is also today in ruins.
In the Cathedral various sacred objects of artistic value are preserved, among which a precious 15th-century chalice and an original bronze lectern by Pietro Tacca (1577-1650). The archive has been dispersed: a few papers are preserved in the capitular archive, the remainder in the State archive of Florence.
At present the diocese, with an area of 453 sq km, comprises 73 parishes, 83 diocesan priests, 11 regulars and 45,000 inhabitants, all Catholics (1948).