GAETA, Archdiocese of. - The archdiocese of G., immediately subject to the Holy See, is part of the province of Latina, and comprises the territories that were once those of the dioceses of Formia, Minturno and Fondi, over an area of 774 sq km.; population 109,400, of whom 109,300 are Catholics; 43 parishes; 81 secular priests, 18 regulars; minor seminary (1949). The Cathedral is dedicated to the Assumption.
In Roman times G. was a small settlement around the port of Formia, which at the beginning of the Middle Ages depended on the Western Empire, and in it the bishop and the inhabitants of Formia sought refuge from pirates in 681. After rising to become the capital of a duchy, governed by an hypatos, G. passed in 1140 to the Norman monarchy, becoming an important maritime stronghold, from which Marcantonio Colonna set sail for Lepanto in 1571, and on his return he deposited in the Cathedral the banner given to him by Pius V. On 25 Nov. 1848, later joined by the court, by the king of Naples and by the grand duke of Tuscany, Pius IX took refuge there, and on 11 Feb. 1849 he ordered prayers for the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (Pius IX, Acta, I, Rome 1854, pp. 162-66). The last bulwark of the Bourbons, G. was besieged in 1860-61 and captured by Cialdini. Born there were Giovanni Crescenzi-Caetani, later Gelasius II (1118-19); Tommaso de Vio, called the Gaetano (1469-1534), a most learned commentator on the Summa of St. Thomas, pontifical legate in Germany and later cardinal; the painters Scipione Pulzone called Gaetano (1550-88), Sebastiano Conca (v.) and the historians Erasmo and Sebastiano Gattola (18th century).
The bishopric of G., formed by the union of the more ancient ones of Formia (v.) and Minturno (v.), is not found mentioned before the 8th century. Among its prelates, the writer Francesco Patrizi (1460), a friend of Pius II, is long remembered. In 1818 the suppressed diocese of Fondi (v.) was annexed to that of G., which Pius IX, also in memory of the hospitality he had found there in exile, raised on 31 Dec. 1849 to an archbishopric, Ludovico Parisi being bishop.
In the diocese was located the monastery of S. Angelo di Balenzano, suppressed in 1788 (Cod. dipl. Caietan., II, p. 107), whose church is already noted in a charter of 839.
MONUMENTS
Besides the Roman remains and the castle of origin, which had been enlarged by Charles V, the following are remembered: the church of S. Giovanni a mare, called of S. Giuseppe, built in the 12th century; the Cathedral, consecrated on 22 January 1106 by Paschal II and rebuilt in 1792, which, with valuable paintings and sculptures of various periods, preserves the column of the paschal candle (13th century) and the bell tower of the second half of the 12th century; the churches of S. Lucia, with remains of the 13th and 15th centuries, of S. Domenico, with remains of the 9th century, and of the Annunziata, erected in 1321 and rebuilt in 1621. In the cleft of the split mountain is the sanctuary of the Crocifisso of the 15th century.
Bibliography12 works
Alberto Galleti