GUBBIO, DIOCESE OF. – A city and diocese of Umbria, immediately subject to the Holy See.
It has a population of 50,000, all Catholic; it comprises 65 parishes, 56 diocesan priests and 25 regular clergy, 7 male religious communities with 25 professed members and 17 female communities with 135 professed sisters (1948).
A letter from Pope Innocent I dated 19 March 416, known as one of the most interesting documents in the history of the ancient Church (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 311), is addressed to Decentius, bishop of G., the first bishop certainly known. The praedecessores mentioned in the document are unknown, and the lists compiled by local authors and accepted by various writers to fill the silence of the documents are not worthy of any credence.
Similarly, the names of the bishops placed by these same writers after Decentius up to Bishop Gaudiosus, the second of whom we have certain knowledge (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 1712-13), are to be rejected. A dark period follows in the history of the Church of G.; only the names of the bishops Leudericus and Peter, from the 10th century, are known from documents of that century. A religious revival manifested itself after the year 1000, particularly during the period of the reform: the bishops of the Church of Gubbio maintained very close ties with the nearby hermitage of Fonte Avellana. According to tradition, its founder around the year 1000 was Ludolph, who later became bishop of Gubbio, and St. Peter Damian, prior from 1043 and reformer of the hermitage, was for a time administrator of the Church of Gubbio (Epistulae, I, 14; PL 144, 223).
The reforming activity of the saint of Fonte Avellana spread throughout the diocese, which at that time counted sixteen hermitages governed by notable figures of saintly bishops: Rodulfus, who corresponded with St. Peter Damian (Epistulae, IV, 10, 11; PL 144, 320-21); the blessed John of Lodi, a disciple of Peter Damian and prior of Fonte Avellana (P. Cenci, Vita di s. Giovanni di Lodi, vescovo di G., Città di Castello 1906), and later St. Ubaldus (1128-60; Acta S. Maii, III, Paris 1866, p. 625 sq.) of Gubbio, who lived in the city, then a commune, and carried out effective work of pacification there (P. Cenci, Vita di s. Ubaldo, Gubbio 1924); he was canonized by Celestine III on 4 March 1192. In the 13th century, under Bishop Blessed Villanus, Gubbio became, through the apostolate of St. Francis himself in this land (1220-22; I Fioretti, ch. 21), one of the liveliest centers of early Franciscanism, rich in memories and monuments, including the temple built by Fra Bevignate to the Saint (1256; U. Paris, S. Francesco, i Francescani e la città di G., Florence 1928). In the Renaissance period the Church of Gubbio had commendatory bishops and administrators; the most illustrious incumbent of that time was Marcello Cervini (1544-55) of Montepulciano, later elected pope (Marcellus II, 1555). In 1563 it was made a suffragan of Urbino by Pius IV, and Benedict XIII renewed the arrangement in 1725. Since 1818 Gubbio has been immediately subject to the Holy See.
The history of the city and diocese is linked with the formation and development of the Papal States. Gubbio was a city of the Pentapolis, called the mountain (provincia castellorum) or annona district, occupied by Aistulf in 752. With the restitution made by the Lombards to Pepin in 756, by which a domain of the Holy See was constituted, Gubbio is expressly mentioned among the lands ceded (L. Duchesne, Les premiers temps de l'État pontifical, Turin 1947, p. 52), and in the city Charlemagne stayed after his coronation in the year 800. Reclaimed for the dominion of the Holy See by Cardinal E. Albornoz, Gubbio rose as a free commune in 1376. Having freed itself from the tyranny of Bishop Gabriele Gabrielli, it placed itself under Antonio da Montefeltro, lord of Urbino, in 1384 and belonged to that duchy until 1631, when with its return to the Holy See, Gubbio was also restored and remained under papal dominion until its annexation in 1860 to the Kingdom of Italy.
MONUMENTS. – The earliest certain record of the cathedral church, dedicated to St. Marianus, within the walls of the city of Gubbio, dates back to the 10th century (P. Cenci, Di due pergamene del sec. X fino ad ora sconosciute, in Bollettino di storia patria dell'Umbria, 14 (1908, 11-11), pp. 567-73). Later the cathedral was dedicated to the holy martyrs Marianus and James, African martyrs of Lambesa, whose relics had been transferred to Gubbio in ancient times, perhaps between the 5th and 6th centuries; Clement III granted permission to transfer there also all the relics of saints from the old city (bull Pia desideria of 20 October 1188). The present building on the slopes of the Ingino hill, where from the 10th century the new city had been forming, is assigned, according to a widely held opinion, to the 14th century and is said to have been completed under Bishop Peter Gabrielli, with elements from an earlier period. The façade, recently restored, has fine bas-reliefs: the Lamb, the Four Evangelists and a portal in simple lines. The characteristic single-naved interior with pointed arches shows restorations and remodellings from the 16th century; still characteristic is the high altar formed by two pagan sarcophagi one above the other. In the same building is the diocesan museum, opened in 1908. The episcopal archives do not possess ancient documents; the chapter archives, with a precious collection of parchments (11th-12th centuries), are kept in the residence of the Chapter, attached to the cathedral. The communal archives, in the Palazzo del Podestà (14th century), preserve many documents, largely from the ancient monasteries of Gubbio (G. Mazzantini, Gli archivi della storia d'Italia, Rocca S. Casciano 1809-1905, I, p. 31 ff.; P. Cenci, Codice diplomatico di G. dal 900 al 1200, in Archivio per la storia ecclesiastica dell'Umbria, 2 (1915), p. 1 ff.).
SERAFINO PRETE
THE TABLES OF GUBBIO. – Known in Latin as the Iguvinae or Eugubinae, these are seven bronze tablets: four large, older ones inscribed on both sides in Umbrian characters, and three smaller, later ones in Latin characters, discovered in 1444 and purchased by the commune, which keeps them in the civic museum. The canonical numbering from 1 to 7 does not correspond to the actual order of the text. Their content is chiefly religious, and the subjects may be grouped as follows.
Tablets I and VI-VII a: Consecration of the area (ceris) of Iguvium and purification of the people, after the removal (exterminatio) beyond the boundary of the territory of those who have no right to be present at the ceremony, such as foreigners; these are the Tadinate (Gualdo Tadino), the Tusci (Etruscans), the Iapudici (Illyrians from the Adriatic coast, the people along the Nahr [Nera]).
Tablet II a: Sacrifice to Hontus Iovius, of an apotropaic nature against adverse omens.
Tablets III-IV: Annual ceremonies of the brotherhood of the Atiedian brothers, so called because they originally came from Atiedium (Lat. Attidium).
Tablet V: Internal organization of this brotherhood.
Tablets II b and V: Social and juridical relations among the groups living in Gubbio.
The deities invoked with prayers and sacrifices are: the triad Jupiter, Mars and Vofion, all male, analogous to the Roman triad Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, both modeled on the Etruscan triad Jupiter, Juno and Minerva; the triad Trebus Jupiter, Tefro and Fisio Sansio (cf. Fidius Sancus, Deus Fidius of the Romans), to whom the acropolis of Gubbio is dedicated.
In the rite of the purification of the people, female deities are also invoked: Prestota Cerfia, meaning protector, and Torsia Cerfia, meaning expeller of enemies, invoked in a single prayer with Cerfo, god of the city, who is given the epithet of Mars. In the annual sacrifice of the Confraternity of the Atiedii, sacrifices are made to Jupiter Father, to Poemuno (Pomono), god of fruits, and to Visona.
The Iguvine Tables are the most notable ancient monument relating to the Umbrians. From them, in addition to the religious data mentioned above, it can be deduced that the Italic peoples originally inhabited fortified centers rather than true and proper cities; but that the Iguvines already inhabited a territory of their own, geographically circumscribed, and that they knew not only the generic grouping of the people (tauta) but also the division into tribes (trifu) in the territorial sense, an internal subdivision of citizens into decuries (tekvias) below which stood the infantry, corresponding to the collective grouping of the gens.
GUBBIO, DIOCESE OF
The wax candles — Cathedral.
In the cathedral, numerous paintings are preserved. Among the many monumental and historic churches, most of which were built in the characteristic Eugubine style with a single nave and transverse pointed arches (M. Salmi, *Le chiese gotiche in G.*, in *L'arte*, 25 [1922], pp. 220-231), the following are noteworthy: S. Felicissimo, the oldest in the city, dating from before the 11th century (P. Cenci, *S. Felicissimo di Nocera-Umbria*, Rome 1906); S. Pietro, which arose near the oldest Benedictine foundation in G., reaching its peak in the 11th-12th centuries, becoming a commendam in the 15th, transferred to the Olivetans in 1523 and suppressed in 1860. The surviving monumental temple preserves, of the original Romanesque structure, the façade (with a bifora and small portico); the remaining parts date from the 13th-16th centuries. S. Secondo: the oldest documents mention the canonical church of SS. Secondo and Agapio, seat of the Augustinian Canons, placed under apostolic protection (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 8216); but the original saintly patrons, African martyrs, were replaced by S. Secondo, whose name remained with the abbatial canonry, while, due to the prevalence and spread of the cult of the African martyr, later legend-makers recounted his deeds as those of a local saint (BHL, 7558); the present building dates from the 13th century, with a fine cloister (12th century) and various later restorations. S. Francesco, begun in 1256 by Fra Bevignate: the exterior is perfectly preserved in its Gothic lines, while the interior, with three naves and twelve octagonal columns, is a partial restoration of the 17th century. In an ancient chapel and in the adjoining cloister, some frescoes are preserved (13th-15th centuries). S. Agostino, built in 1251: the exterior is in its original form, the façade from the 17th century; notable is the composition, in the apse, of frescoes illustrating the life of St. Augustine, by Ottaviano Nelli (15th century). S. Maria dei Laici, built by the Confraternity of the White Penitents (1313): the interior is a 17th-century restoration with fine paintings (14th-15th centuries) in the crypt. The basilica of S. Ubaldo, situated on the "elected hill" where in 1194 the body of the Saint had been transferred: built on the ancient pieve of S. Gervasio, it was enlarged in the 16th century. Gubbio has a municipal art gallery, housed in the Palazzo dei Consoli, with an interesting collection in which is the notable group of the best
Gubbio, diocese of — The wax candles — Cathedral.