GRENOBLE, Diocese of. - City, capital of the department of Isère, entirely included in the diocese itself, besides the canton of Villeurbaine in the department of the Rhône. It has an area of 8,200 sq km with a population of about 700,000 inhabitants, of whom about 400,000 are Catholics.
The diocese is divided into two archdeaconries; the first, that of G., comprises the districts of G. itself and of St-Marcellin; the second, that of Vienne, comprises the districts of Vienne, of La Tour-du-Pin and the canton of Villeurbaine. There are then 47 deaneries with 598 parishes and 150 vicariates, served by 575 secular priests and 80 regulars, with two seminaries, 13 male religious communities and 60 female ones (1949).
The original name of the city of G. was "Cularo"; it was changed to "Gratianopolis" in the time of the emperor Gratian (367-83), whence later G.
The first bishop of G. was St. Donninus, present in 381 at the Council of Aquileia; the list of the first thirty-seven bishops is attributed to the bishop St. Hugh; the best known are "Ceretius," commemorated on 6 June in the Hieronymian Martyrology and mentioned in the synodal letter of Eusebius of Milan to Leo I (PL 54, 887, 946); "Victurius," present in 518-23 at the Council of Lyon; Clarus, who intervened in 650 at the Council of Chalon-sur-Saône and signed for St. Denis in 654 the privilege of Clovis II; Bernard, elected in 869, mentioned in letters of Louis II and Lothair II; Isaac, mentioned in documents from 892 to 922.
The diocese is a suffragan of Lyon; its patroness is the B. V. M. Assumed into heaven.
The cathedral of Notre-Dame, built in the 11th century, was several times renovated; its high altar of marble (16th century) comes from the Grande-Chartreuse.
Noteworthy is the church of St. Lawrence, built in the 12th century over a Merovingian chapel which forms its crypt, beneath the eastern part. The vault is supported by twenty columns of Roman origin. The capitals with their decorations of confronted animals and vine tendrils recall in their roughness those of St. Vitale in Ravenna; the apse is framed by superimposed small columns (J. J. A. Pilot, Notice sur l'église de St-Laurent de G., Grenoble 1864; L. Maitre, L'oratoire mérovingien de St-Laurent de G., in Revue de l'art chrétien, 5th series, 3 (1907), pp. 217-25). In restoration work carried out in the crypt, Christian inscriptions appeared, one of them from the year 520 (M. Raymond and Ch. Giraud, La chapelle St-Laurent à G., in Bulletin archéologique du Comité, 1893, p. 12). Other Christian inscriptions of G. are in CIL, 12, pp. 273-91, nos. 2309-14. In G. St. John Vianney was ordained priest. Near G. was born Pierre Terrail, lord of Bayard, "the knight without stain and without fear." The last constable was Lesdiguières (1543-1627), called "the fox of the Dauphiné." The Library of G. possesses 14,000 manuscripts and 700 incunabula. The Museum of G. is also noteworthy, with Coptic fabrics from the 5th to the 7th century. G. is the seat of a flourishing University. - See plate LXXXIV.
Bibliography8 works
Enrico Josi