GORIZIA, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - In Venezia Giulia. The occupation of Aquileia which, according to the agreements of 1445, should have remained under the temporal dominion of the patriarch, carried out in 1542 by the troops of Ferdinand I, King of Germany, out of spite against Venice, came to create a new political situation in the country. Ferdinand ill tolerated the fact that a Venetian prelate was the titular of the patriarchate which occupied so great a part of his territories in the southeast; there was furthermore involved a conflict of interests and of boundaries with the Venetian Republic, which made political relations thorny.
It is known that it was Ferdinand's aim to create a bishopric at G. in order to free himself as much as possible from subjection to the patriarchate. G. was then a simple parish church, which had detached itself from nearby Salcano and had acquired importance, situated as it was below the Castle, on the upper edges of the Friulian plain; Archduke Charles of Styria, son of Ferdinand, succeeded in 1574 in having it placed at the head of an archdeaconry, dividing it from that of Aquileia; then from 1583 he worked very hard to create there a bishopric, supported also by the pontifical nuncio at Graz. He encountered hostility in Venice and in the papal Curia and died (1591) before seeing his design fulfilled. Some other attempts in the following century had no better result, also because no way was found to constitute the endowment of the new foundation. The contributions of Gorizian citizens (Gullin and Codelli) facilitated the execution of the design, which found its most valid support in the reforming activity of Empress Maria Theresa. Benedict XIV, notwithstanding the tenacious opposition of the Venetian Republic and of Patriarch Daniele Delfino, first resolved the question, constituting at G. an apostolic vicariate which he entrusted to Count Carlo Michele Attems, titular bishop of Pergamon (1749). On 9 July 1751 the same Pontiff, with the bull Iniuncus nobis, by which he suppressed the patriarchate of Aquileia, constituted the archbishopric of G. for the territories subject to the Empire and named Attems first archbishop. The new archdiocese had as suffragans: Pedena in Istria, Trieste, Trento and Como. The arrangement did not last because Joseph II, with the consent of Pius VI, in 1788 elevated the see of Ljubljana to an archdiocese, abolished the see of G. and instituted that of Gradisca in its place. But on 12 Sept. 1791 the Pope, in agreement with Emperor Leopold, reconstituted the episcopal see of G., that is, Gradisca, until Pius VIII on 27 July 1830 again elevated G. to a metropolitan see with the suffragan dioceses of Ljubljana, Trieste-Capodistria, Parenzo-Pola and Veglia; after the war of 1915-18 Ljubljana and Veglia, included in Yugoslavia, are immediately subject to the Holy See (1920). The territory of the diocese, after various vicissitudes, is now constituted by the Italian part alone with the seminary; it has an area of 1030 sq km and 168,000 inhabitants in 85 parishes, among which are included Aquileia and Grado. The sanctuary of Monte Santo above G., famous throughout the region, has remained in the territory assigned to Yugoslavia. To G. at the moment of the division of the patriarchate was assigned the Treasury with a part of the codices, since it was the heir of the patriarchate of Aquileia. - See plate LXV.
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Enrico Marcon