ISCHIA, Diocese of. - Founded in the 12th century on the largest of the islands in the Gulf of Naples; area 46.3 sq km; entirely Catholic population of 53,000 inhabitants; 6 municipalities. The diocese, a suffragan of Naples, comprises only the island; 18 parishes, 3 male religious communities, 12 female, an archaeological museum and a library with 13,000 volumes.
The island is variously named by Greek and Latin poets and historians. The current name begins to appear around the 8th century. Its geological formation is of volcanic origin, probably from the period known as the diluvial. The first inhabitants are traced back to the 3rd millennium B.C.; later the Etruscans, Phoenicians, Syracusans, Greeks and Latins landed there and established colonies. As early as 192 B.C.
the Romans, because of the prodigious and abundant thermal waters, still exploited today, built several baths there, as is proved by inscriptions, bas-reliefs and statues unearthed in recent years. According to the Passio, the body of the African martyr St. Restituta would have been laid on the shore of the island, and she would have been given burial at Lacco Ameno. In the spring of 1950, after the floor of the church of St. Restituta was removed, other more ancient floors were found superimposed, and at 1.35 m from the floor level some tombs and a Christian terracotta lamp were discovered; it was also established that the apse wall is of the Roman era.
The history of the island is not extraneous to all the events that followed the fall of the Roman Empire through the whole of the Middle Ages. It was destroyed by not a few earthquakes and eruptions of Epomeo, sacked by pirates and contested by various invaders. The Castle that rises on a great rock, connected to the island by a bridge, was built in 474 B.C. by Hiero of Syracuse and rebuilt in 1441 by Alfonso V of Aragon; for centuries it was the stronghold of the island and the refuge of the survivors who escaped the earthquakes and the raids of pirates.
I. is the birthplace of St. John Joseph of the Cross (1654-1734) and of Baldassarre Cossa (1367-1419), antipope under the name of John XXIII. The Cathedral is dedicated to Mary Most Holy Assumed into Heaven. - See plate XVII.
Bibliography4 works
Gennaro Auletta