IVIZA (IBIZA), DIOCESE of. — I. is one of the islands in the Balearic group. The Ebusitan diocese consists of the islands of I. (Eivissa or Ervissa in Catalan) and Formentera, together with several adjacent islets. Altogether, it covers an area of 600 sq. km. and has a population of 45,000, all Catholics.
The diocese comprises 23 parishes (with five archpriesthoods), whose pastoral service is carried out by 53 diocesan priests and 2 religious priests; it has a conciliar seminary and a preparatory school attached to the seminary, one male religious community and 11 female ones (1949).
The islands of I. and Formentera were called “Pityusae” by the Greeks, on account of the luxuriant pine vegetation that still adorns them. The Romans called I. Ebusus. The name Formentera derives from the Latin Frumentaria.
Victor of Vita mentions, among the bishops whom the Vandal king Huneric had summoned to Carthage in order to win them over to Arianism, Helias of Majorca, Macarius of Minorca, and Opilio of I.; they courageously proclaimed their steadfast adherence to their faith. In 535, following Belisarius’s expedition against the Vandals of Africa and the Balearic Islands, I. became part of Byzantine Spain. From then on it became a refuge for the monks of the monastery situated near Cape Martin.
The final years of Visigothic rule produced a gold ring, discovered a few years ago near the city among burial remains, bearing a Cross with the following inscription: In D(omi)no Benedicto tecum, Vifrede, vita. In 1235 I. and Formentera were conquered by Guillermo de Montgrí and then passed to the diocese of Tarragona, until their erection as a bishopric by Pius VI in the bull Ineffabilis Dei benignitas of 30 April 1782. The first bishop of the new diocese was Fr. Manuel Abad y Lasierra.
Under the Concordat of 1851, the Cathedral was reduced to a collegiate church and incorporated into the bishopric of Majorca. In 1927, the bishopric was restored with the status of an apostolic administration. In 1950 I. was erected as a diocese.
Natives of I. included Jaime Cardona y Tur (d. 1923), bishop of Sion and patriarch of the Indies; Juan Torres y Ribas (d. 1939), bishop of Minorca; and Fr. Fulgenzio Torres y Mayans (d. 1914), bishop-abbot of New Norcia, founder of the Drysdale River mission (Australia).
The archives of the Cathedral and the bishopric are rich in parchments and historical documents.
MONASTERIES AND CONVENTS. — The first monastery was that of S. Maria de Formentera, belonging to the Hermits of s. Agostino. It survived only until the end of the 13th century or the beginning of the 14th, when the island was abandoned because of the Moorish incursions. Toward the end of the 15th century or the beginning of the 14th, the Franciscans settled in the church of Nostra Signora di Gesù, to whom the islanders had been devoted since ancient times.
In 1580 the Dominicans joined the Franciscans, founding in the city the convent of S. Vincenzo Ferrer and S. Giacomo. They remained there until 1836. In 1599 the monastery of S. Cristoforo of the Augustinian nuns was founded. In 1653 the Jesuits expelled in 1767 by King Carlo III settled in I.
MONUMENTS. — The most notable monument is the Cathedral (the former parish church of S. Maria), with its old tower. The Cathedral, built shortly after the Christian conquest of 1235, is Gothic, but was partly disfigured by the Baroque reconstruction of the eighteenth century. Its titular is Our Lady of the Snows, patroness of the diocese. Among other things, it preserves a precious Gothic monstrance, with rich enamels, dating from the beginning of the fifteenth century. Adjacent to it is the building of the Archaeological Museum, with Punic and Roman collections and a beautiful Gothic hall of the thirteenth–fourteenth century, formerly the chapel of the Saviour, belonging to the Confraternity of the Seafaring Peoples.
Next in importance is the church of S. Domenico (the former Dominican convent of S. Vincenzo and S. Giacomo), a Renaissance work (1592) by two Genoese masters. In the parish of Our Lady of Jesus there is a painting of the Madonna to whom the church is dedicated, by the Valencian painter Rodrigo de Osona (the Younger), from the beginning of the sixteenth century.
BIBLI: F. PITA, Antigüedades ebnistanas. Madrid 1907; I. Macabich, S. Maria la Mayor, Ibiza 1916; id., Sobre arqueologia ibicesea, 3 vols., Palma di Maiorca 1931–33; id., Historia de I., 7 vols., there 1935–43.