ISOLA di CAPO RIZZUTO. — Suppressed diocese. The town of I. on the Ionian Sea, a little south of Crotone, was an episcopal see from as early as the 9th century.
The Byzantines, creating the diocese and metropolis of S. Severina from the ground up, gave it four suffragan sees, including I., which is mentioned in Greek documents as κατεύλος τῶν Ἀταύλων. It appears in the Byzantine Notitiae (PG 107, 384) from the time of Leo the Philosopher (868–912). G. Fiore’s assertion is therefore entirely arbitrary,
that I. “was a venerable Benedictine monastery, whose abbot, named N., transformed it into a cathedral around the year of Our Lord 1000.” Minasi even denies the existence of the Benedictine abbey which, according to Ughelli, Bishop Matteo exempted from his jurisdiction in 1239.
I. was destroyed twice by the Saracens. The population, already distributed among three parishes, was reduced to a single one, with no more than 3,000 souls. Consequently, in 1818, under the Concordat between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Naples, it was suppressed and its territory incorporated into that of nearby Crotone.
Among the prelates of I., mention should be made of the Benedictine Onorato Fascitelli, a man of letters who took part in the Council of Trent; Annibale Caracciolo, his successor, munificent and zealous; and above all St. Luca di Melicucci, a Basilian monk who governed it at the end of the 11th century and obtained privileges from Count Roger the Norman in 1092.