JESI. - City and diocese in the province of Ancona. It has 73,000 inhabitants, of whom 62,000 are Catholics; 27 parishes with 69 diocesan priests, a seminary, 1 male religious house and 21 female ones (Annuario Pontificio, 1951). Patron St. Septimius, bishop (Sept. 22).
HISTORY
Of Umbrian origin, it took its name from the river Aesa; it was a Roman colony; it suffered the sackings of the Goths and the Lombards; in 756 it was included among the donations of Pepin to Pope Stephen II. Counts of J. were successively, in the 11th century, Attone, Alberico, Ugone and Gozo; after the middle of the 12th century the Commune arose with 4 consuls and guild schools; the motto «Respublica Aesina libertas ecclesiastica» explains quite well the origin of the Commune itself, which arose from the enfranchisement granted by the ecclesiastics, bishop and monks of the flourishing abbeys established in the territory (C. Annibaldi, Jesi e la sua costituzione a Comune, in Studia Picena, 1 [1923], pp. 66-71). The «Memoriale Civitatis Aesii et antiquitatum suarum» begins in the year 1114.
The Republic of J. held subject the castles of Serradeconti, Montalboddo, Barbaro, Monteno, and fought against Guelph Ancona. In 1259 J. was placed under interdict and deprived of its bishop by Alexander IV. Cardinal E. d'Albornoz removed it from the dominion of the Malatesta. J. was among the great cities in the Egidian constitutions of 1357. Taken by Francesco Sforza, it returned in 1447 to the Church, against which it attempted to rebel in 1486. It was sacked in 1517 by the soldiers of the duke of Urbino Francesco della Rovere. In 1528 Clement VII granted J. the privilege of the mint. In 1580 a chair of philosophy and one of law were founded; Sixtus V exempted
J. from the jurisdiction of the legate of the Marches and granted a separate government presided over by a prelate.
Christianity penetrated quite early into J. and its first bishop was St. Settimo. A certain St. Floriano, venerated in J. on 4 May, could, according to Lanzoni, be the martyr Floriano venerated in Noricum near Lauriana (Lorch). Bishops of J. were also the cardinals Camillo Borghese (1597, later Paul V), Tiberio Cenci (1621), Alderano Cibo (1656-71), P. M. Petrucci (1681-96), G. B. Caprara (1800-1802) who concluded the Concordat with Napoleon; he had as his successor A. M. Odescalchi, deported in 1809 by the French. The diocese is immediately subject.
The primitive cathedral was dedicated to the Most Holy Savior; then to St. Nicholas. Bishop Severino in 1237 began the new cathedral, dedicated to St. Settimio; it was rebuilt in 1469, and was remade by D. Barrigioni (1732-41); the facade is from 1889. The interior has a single nave with a Latin cross and dome (C. Annibaldi, La cattedrale jesina e i suoi rinnovamenti, Jesi 1925). Other notable churches: St. Mark, founded by the Benedictines in the 13th century, with three naves divided by octagonal pillars; St. John the Baptist, from the end of the 17th century; the monastery of St. Benedict de Castello Plano, annexed by Callistus III to the episcopal mensa.
A few km. from J. stood the Benedictine abbey of St. Mary «Molearum» with a church of the 9th century, transformed in the 17th century and then restored to its ancient lines, today called the church of «Le Moje»; and the abbey of St. Helena (P. Zampetti, La Chiesa abbaziale di S. Elena nei dintorni di J., Ancona 1940).
Natives of J. were: the scholar Msgr. Angelo Colocci (1467-1540), secretary of Leo X and of Clement VII; the musician G. B. Pergolesi (v.).
In honor of Clement XII the Clementine arch was erected in 1734. In 1472 Federico dei Conti di Verona printed the Divine Comedy in J. The Pinacoteca is rich in panels by Lorenzo Lotto (the Annunciation; the Vaticazione; the Deposition; the Virgin with Child, St. Joseph and St. Jerome, St. Francis and St. Clare; the Stories of St. Lucy).
In the former church of St. Floriano is housed the municipal Library with the library of the marquises Pianetti attached to it.