GALVI and TEANO, dioceses of. – Dioceses of Campania, united *neque et principaliter* in 1818 with the episcopal see in Teano. Area: 447.4 sq km; parishes: 107; diocesan priests: 140; religious: 46; total Catholic population: 73,000 (1948). It is a suffragan of Capua.
C., the ancient *Cales* of the Romans, on the right bank of the Volturno, north of Capua, destroyed by the Saracens in the 8th century, was rebuilt nearby by Atenulfo, first Count of Caserta. The origin of the diocese is uncertain. At C. St Casto is venerated as apostle and patron; he is not a local martyr but an African, companion of St Emilius (H. Delehaye, *Les origines du culte des martyrs*, 2nd ed., Brussels 1933, p. 370).
The first known bishop is Valerius, present at the Roman Synod of 499. The regular list of bishops begins in the 12th century. The Romanesque cathedral with three apses is dedicated to St Casto; some Christian inscriptions were found there, one of them from the year 346 (CIL, X, I, 4712-4713).
The “Grotta dei santi” contains votive frescoes of the 10th-11th century, of Benedictine school.
T. is situated in the valley of the Savone, dominated by the cone of Rocca Monfina. It was the capital of the Sidicini and played a major part in the Samnite wars. The first bishop of T. seems to have been Amasius (337-52). 6th-century documents give the names of Paride, who is said to have been ordained by Pope Sylvester (BHL, 6466), and of Amasius who is said to have been ordained by Pope Julius (ibid., 3545-46); then we meet a St Urban (ibid., 8408) and Quintus, who appears at the Roman Council of 499.
In 1906 near T. a Christian cemetery of the 4th-5th century was discovered; in a semicircle were seven superimposed tombs; the second from the top was closed with a mosaic decoration representing the Epiphany, and an inscription placed by a Geminus Felix to his wife Geminia Felicitas and to his daughter Geminia Marciana who died in the year 570. Another inscription bears the date of the year 442 (v. Spinazzola, *Di un musaico cristiano e di altre antichità nel territorio di Teano*, in *Notizie degli scavi*, 1907, pp. 697-703).
Notable in T. was the abbey of St Benedict, built in the 8th century by Landulf, Count of T.; in 884 the monks of Montecassino took refuge there after the killing of their abbot Bertarius and the burning of their monastery; in 896 a fire destroyed the autograph of the Rule preserved there. The monastery declined in the 12th century. There were also the abbey of St Mary of Ferraria or della Ferrara near Vairano, founded in 1171 by the Cistercian John of Ferraria; the two abbeys of Benedictine nuns of St Catherine (1590) and of St Mary *de foris* (1610).
The cathedral is dedicated to SS John and Terentianus; the patronal feast of St Paride is on 5 August. Other notable churches are St Benedict and St Francis.