CUNEO, Diocese of. - In southern Piedmont, it borders to the north with Fossano and Saluzzo, to the east with Mondovì, to the south and west with France, and extends over 1869 sq km. It has a population of 90,000 inhabitants, of whom 80,000 are Catholics, 71 parishes, 177 secular priests and 42 religious (1948). Male religious institutes: Jesuits, Orionists, Salesians, Franciscans and Capuchins. It is a suffragan of Turin.
The city arose around 1198 and was rebuilt in 1230 by the second Lombard League. Having given itself to Charles of Anjou in 1259, it was the capital of the county of Piedmont. In 1382 it gave itself to the Savoys and for them withstood seven victorious sieges: the most famous are those of 1557 and 1744. Its walls and the citadel were demolished by Napoleon, who made the city a provincial capital. It repeatedly tried to have a bishop from the 14th century onward; its desire was satisfied only by Pius VII, who erected the diocese of C. with a bull of 17 July 1817; the church of S. Maria del Bosco became the Cathedral: it had originally been a Benedictine priory and then a collegiate church; the episcopal palace was offered by the Commune. Among the bishops the following distinguished themselves: the first, Amedeo Bruno di Samone (1817-38), celebrated by Silvio Pellico (Le processioni); Clemente Manzini (1844-65), esteemed by Manzoni and by E. De Amicis; Teodoro Valfrè di Bonzo (1885-96), later nuncio in Vienna and cardinal.
Saints and venerables native to C.: Bl. Angelo Carletti (d. 1495); Fra' Diego da Valdieri (d. 1655); Fr. Benigno Dalmazzo (d. 1744); Felice De Andreis
(d. 1820); Brunone Lanteri (d. 1830). Numerous are the figures deserving remembrance: Alardo and Giovanni di Valdieri, valiant crusaders with St. Louis, the first remembered by Dante (Inf., XXVIII, 18); Giorgio Saluzzo di Valgrana, prince-bishop of Lausanne, castellan of Castel S. Angelo in Rome and vice-chamberlain (d. 1461); Francesco de Ferraris, missionary in China in the retinue of Fr. Ricci (d. 1672); Filippo Maria Grimaldi, missionary, mathematician at the court of Peking, astronomer, writer, diplomat, bishop-elect of Peking (d. 1712); Giuseppe Francesco Megranesio (d. 1793), author of the Pedemontium sacrum, but famous also for his literary forgeries; Bruno Bruni, writer, editor of the works of St. Maximus (d. 1796); Giovanni Alasia, apostolic vicar of Algiers and Tunis (d. 1800); Angelo della Porta, titular bishop of Thermopylae, almoner and diplomat at the court of Naples (d. 1835); Margarita Bergesio, foundress of the sanctuary of Our Lady of Africa in Algiers, collaborator of Card. Lavigerie (d. 1875); Antonio Malan, apostle of the Bororos in Brazil, writer, bishop of Petrolina (d. 1931). Furthermore: Clemente Solaro della Margarita, writer and statesman (d. 1869); Giuseppe Barbaroux, minister, statesman, author of the Albertine Codes (d. 1843); Sebastiano Grandis, author of the Fréjus tunnel (d. 1892); Ettore Pais, distinguished historian (d. 1939).
Among the archives, notable is the Civic one of C. (from about 1350); those of the Curia and of the Chapter (they have no documents earlier than 1600); the civic library (about 40,000 vols.); that of the seminary (18,000 vols.).
The oldest distinguished monument of C. is the 13th-century church of S. Francesco with Romanesque-Gothic features and a fine marble portal of 1481. The church of S. Croce preserves the original Gothic structure in part of the choir; the rest of the building was remodeled in the 18th century by the architect Francesco Gallo, to whom is also due the reconstruction of the medieval church of S. Ambrogio. In the small sanctuary of the Madonna degli Angeli, built in 1450 but much deteriorated afterward, few remains of 15th-century frescoes survive. In Borgo S. Dalmazzo the monasterium S. Dalmatii de Pedona, sive de Burgo S. Dalmatii: a Benedictine abbey founded in the 7th century by the Lombard king Agilulf and by Theodelinda; it belonged first to the diocese of Asti, after 1388 to that of Mondovì and now to C. (v. Cottineau, I, coll. 440-41).
Bibliography11 works
Alfonso Maria Riberi