COLLE VAL D'ELSA, DIOCESI of. — In Tuscany, province of Siena, suffragan of Florence. The origins of this diocese are to be sought in the two pieves of S. Salvatore (de Colle) and of SS. Giovanni, Faustino e Giovita (de Elsa), owned by the Apostolic See, which were placed under the bishop of Volterra by Clement III in 1188. But as the conflicts between the archpriests of C. and Volterra increasingly intensified, in 1356 both pieves were declared nullus dioecesis. Later, also because of the marked growth of the population and the expansion of industrial life, Clement VIII in 1592 declared C. a city and elevated it to an episcopal see, assigning to it territories from the neighboring dioceses; in 1782 Pius VI annexed S. Gimignano to II. From its foundation to the present day, the diocese of C. has been suffragan of Florence.
Within the diocese of C. V. d'E. was situated the abbey of S. Salvatore di Spugna, founded in the 11th century near C., transferred in the 14th century to the Vallombrosans and, in the 15th century, granted in commendam to the Ospedale degli Innocenti of Florence; finally, in 1592, it was incorporated into the new diocese of C. V. d'E. and assigned to its episcopal mensa.
The Cathedral is a seventeenth-century building (1603). A construction worthy of mention is the Vallombrosan abbey of S. Maria a Conco, now abandoned, not far from the city: a typical Romanesque building in the Pisan style. The parish church of SS. Ippolito e Cassiano, also dating from the 11th century, is now in ruins.
The Cathedral preserves various sacred objects of artistic value, including a precious fifteenth-century chalice and an original bronze lectern by Pietro Tacca (1577–1650). The archive has been dispersed: a few documents are preserved in the chapter archive, the remainder in the State Archive of Florence.
At present the diocese, covering an area of 453 sq. km., comprises 73 parishes, 83 diocesan priests, 11 religious priests, and 45,000 inhabitants, all Catholics (1948).