ISOLA DI CAPO RIZZUTO. - Suppressed diocese. The small town of I. on the Ionian Sea, a little south of Crotone, was an episcopal see from the 9th century.

The Byzantines, creating from scratch the diocese and metropolis of S. Severina, gave it four suffragans, among them I., which in Greek documents is recorded as κατεύλος τῶν Ἀταύλων. It appears in the Byzantine Notitiae (PG 107, 384) as early as the time of Leo the Philosopher (868-912). Therefore the assertion of G. Fiore is entirely arbitrary, that I. "was a venerable Benedictine monastery, whose abbot, by the name of N., converted it into a cathedral around the years of Our Lord 1000." Minasi even denies the existence of the Benedictine abbey, which Bishop Matteo, according to Ughelli, would have exempted from his jurisdiction in 1239.

I. was destroyed twice by the Saracens. The population, previously distributed among three parishes, was reduced to a single one, with no more than 3,000 souls. Therefore in 1818, in the Concordat between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Naples, it was suppressed and its territory included in that of nearby Crotone.

Among the prelates of I., worthy of mention are 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. Luke of Melicucci, a Basilian monk, who governed it at the end of the 11th century and obtained privileges from Count Roger the Norman in 1092.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: Ughelli, IX, pp. 709-17; G. Fiore, Calabria illustrata, II, Naples 1743, pp. 338-40; P. Bottazzi, in Enciclopedia dell'eclesiastico, IV, ibid. 1845, pp. 596-97; Hieroclis Synecdemus et notitiae Graecae episcopatuum, ed. Parthey, Berlin 1866, p. 129, n. 657; G. Minasi, Le chiese di Calabria, Naples 1896, pp. 255-58; F. Russo, La metropolia di S. Severina, in Arch. storico della Calabria e Lucania, 16 (1948), pp. 1-20.

Francesco Russo

@incollection{ec7_isola_di_capo_rizzuto, author = {Russo, Francesco}, title = {Isola di Capo Rizzuto}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {304}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/isola-di-capo-rizzuto} }

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