Irsina (formerly Montepeloso)

IRSINA (formerly Montepeloso). - In the province of Matera. The antiquity of the Church is not supported by any document. Through the alternation of dominations, it always remained faithful to the Roman See, nor does the hypothesis seem acceptable that the bishopric was founded by the Byzantines at the close of the 10th century or at the beginning of the 11th. In 1123, from a bull of Callixtus II (1119-24) it emerges that the Benedictine abbot Leo of S. Maria di Montepeloso (d. 1130) was elected bishop; the name of his successor is unknown: he probably must have perished in the massacre carried out by Roger II (1133).

With him and with the city the brief episcopate also came to an end, and the long series of French priors began who governed the church until 1451, in which year the bishopric of Andria and Montepeloso arose. In 1479, after five bishops, Montepeloso regained its independence with the privilege of being directly subject to the Holy See; but in 1818 it was definitively united to the diocese of Gravina

«aque principaliter». Of the bishops of Andria and Montepeloso, the first two are remembered, Fra Antonello of the Minor Conventuals (1451) and Fra Antonio Giannotti the Dominican, hitherto confused as one and the same by all historians; and M. A. Lupoli, the last most learned prelate of Montepeloso (1797).

MONUMENTS

The present Cathedral, from the end of the 18th century, was built on the site of the ancient Gothic one, of which the bell tower remains. Of the monasteries, the best known were the Benedictine ones of Juso and Irsi and the Swabian one of St. Francis of Assisi, of which an frescoed underground chamber remains.

Pasquale Testini