FOGGIA, Diocese of. - The diocese of F., immediately subject to the Holy See, is situated in the province of the same name and is of recent establishment. On 26 June 1855, with the bull Ex hoc Summi Pontificis, Pius IX separated the collegiate church of F. from the bishopric of Troia, making it autonomous and assigning to it the abbey of S. Marco « in Lamis », previously nullius dioeceseos, and subsequently also the well-known sanctuary of the Incoronata, with the exception of the chapel of S. Lorenzo, which remained under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Troia.

The brief series of bishops was opened by M. M. Frascolla, formerly a canon of the cathedral of Andria (1856-69), who was succeeded, in 1872, by Geremia Cosenza of Roccascalegna of the Minorites.

The diocese has 115,000 inhabitants, all Catholics, divided into 18 parishes, served by 66 diocesan priests and 44 regulars. The current bishop of Troia, Msgr. Fortunato Farina, has united the see of F. to it ad personam (10 Aug. 1926).

MONUMENTS

The most distinguished monument is the Cathedral, the primitive nucleus of the city itself. It arose in two stages. On the site where a Byzantine effigy of the Madonna was found, and precisely in a fovea (pit or foggia, from which the city takes its name), Robert Guiscard erected, in the second half of the 11th century, a sanctuary - or a crypt - upon which a century later (end of the 12th century), William II the Good began to raise the great construction. The oldest document, from the first half of the 12th century, is a diploma of Roger Borsa that assigns to the church of St. Nicholas of Bari the land of S. Maria « de Fovea ». This was the first name of the church; it was later changed to Icona-Vetere and then to that of Madonna del Sette Veli.

The architecture of the church was strongly influenced by the nearby cathedral of Troia, drawing on Romanesque-native types with Pisan and Lucchese elements (receding lozenges, corbel tables of blind arches, etc.), until the earthquake of 1731, when the horrible restorations disfigured its original line. Interesting in the interior, besides the crypt, is the chapel of the Icona Vetere with the Byzantine image.

Bibliography8 works

BIBL.: P. Manerba, Memorie sull'origine della città di F. a suo maggiore chiesa, Naples 1798; C. Perifano, Cenni storici sull'origine della città di F., Foggia 1831; F. Villani, La nuova Arpi, Salerno 1876; N. Faraglia, Note foggiane, in Napoli ambizione, Naples 1904, p. 8; E. Berleux, L'art dont l'Italie subridiende, Paris 1904, p. 644 and passim; C. Capuano, La cattedrale di F., Trani 1911; P. Tocca, Storia dell'arte it., Turin 1927, p. 608; Cottineau, I, col. 1544.

Pasquale Terini

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Foggia, Diocese of

MONUMENTS

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