L'AQUILA, ARCIDIOCESI DEL

### L'AQUILA, ARCHDIOCESE OF

L'Aquila is the principal city of Abruzzo and the provincial capital, with an area of 2,172 sq km and 115,000 inhabitants, all Catholic, of whom 60,000 live in the city itself. It comprises 145 parishes served by 149 diocesan priests and 75 regular clergy; it has one seminary (1949). The city is situated 720 m above sea level on the left bank of the Aterno river, in a locality rich in water, at the edge of a basin enclosed by mountains among which rises the Gran Sasso.

The earliest Christian memories of the city are linked to uncertain and obscure accounts of a group of martyrs, SS. Maximus, Justa, and companions, venerated in the region. The first known bishop of Furconium (Forconium, Furconia, today Civita di Bagno) dates from the 7th century. When the city of L'Aquila was founded in the 13th century, Alexander IV established it as an episcopal see, transferring the see from Furconium, which then ceased to exist and took the name of the new city (20 Feb 1257). The diocese absorbed the territories of ancient Amiternum, today S. Vittorino, and in the last century (1818) the diocese of Città Ducale. Since 1881 it has been an archdiocese immediately subject to the Holy See.

#### ABBEYS

In the Aquilan area flourished: the illustrious abbey of S. Giovanni di Collimento, founded after the 11th century and suppressed by Pius II in 1461; S. Benedetto, now S. Maria della Riviera, dating from before 1303 and a priory of the Cistercians; S. Lorenzo, a Benedictine abbey later united to Collemaggio; S. Maria di Collemaggio, founded at Colle Madio in 1287 by St Peter Celestine, who was crowned there in 1294 and is buried there (G. Pansa, *Regestum S. Mariae de Collemadio*, in *Rassegna abruzzese di storia ed arte*, 3 [1890], p. 248); S. Maria di Soccorso of the Olivetans (1472); Alexander VI united to it the abbey of S. Maria di Picciano; S. Spirito, given in commendam in 1547 and united to the hospital of S. Spirito in Sassia in Rome; Bominaco, S. Maria and S. Pellegrino, an abbey of the Benedictines of Farfa, erected in 1001 by Oderisio, Count of Valva, suppressed in 1762.

The archives of the cathedral and the bishopric have been stripped of ancient documents.

**

Serafino Prete

### ART

#### I. Architecture

The earliest documents of Aquilan architecture date from the second half of the 13th century, and with them there already appears that distinctive physiognomy which is simultaneously partaking of the Romanesque tradition and the Gothic, enriched by cultural elements flowing in from the most diverse centres, from the Benedictine centres of artistic culture and the forms of Campanian or Apulian architecture. The earliest religious buildings, now unfortunately much altered by earthquake damage or later alterations, display the characteristic feature of a façade with a horizontal crowning, divided into two horizontal sections by a thin frieze and often also tripartite vertically by two pilasters rising from the base to the crowning. The portal and the rose window are the central decorative elements of the architectural composition, and in them Romanesque and Gothic forms are more closely fused than in the other parts of the building.

The oldest church still partly preserved is perhaps S. Pietro di Sassa (c. 1256), now much transformed, followed by S. Giusta (1257), whose façade, however, dates from 1349, and S. Maria di Collemaggio, the most distinguished monument of the entire region. It was begun in 1283 and consecrated in 1288, but construction continued for many years, and the splendid main portal and rose windows date from the second half of the 14th century. The horizontal façade, framed by a striking backdrop of the Gran Sasso and the Maiella, has an elegant decoration of geometric designs in blocks of white and pink stone. In this church St Peter Celestine, descending from his hermitage on the Morrone, was crowned pope in 1294, and there is his tomb, executed in 1517 by Girolamo da Vicenza.

Other churches were built in the following years. S. Antonio, near Porta Romana, bears on the architrave of its surviving portal the date 1308, and the façade with its notable portal of the church of S. Maria Paganica is traditionally assigned to the same year. Churches displaying more decisively Angevin characteristics, especially in their sculptural decoration, include S. Domenico (ordered by Charles II in 1309, but still unfinished in 1362), S. Maria di Rojo (before 1322), S. Marciano, S. Marco, and Pietro in Coppito. Before 1351 the church of S. Silvestro was begun: its façade, while simpler in decorative scheme, recalls S. Maria di Collemaggio. Inside, on the altar to the left of the high altar, belonging to the Brancione family, was the *Visitation* attributed to Raphael, now in the Prado Museum, Madrid.

The 17th-century architecture, mostly following Roman models, is represented by the oratory of S. Antonio de' Nardis, traditionally attributed to Ercole Ferrata (1647), and the churches of S. Agostino, partly attributed to Fuga, and S. Maria del Suffragio, which has a graceful dome designed by Valadier.

#### II. Sculpture

Sparse are the testimonies of medieval sculpture in L'Aquila, insufficient to indicate a true flowering of works. Pisan influences, mediated through Naples by the workshops of followers of Tino di Camaino, are discernible in the small statues decorating the main portal of S. Maria di Collemaggio and in the group of the Madonna and Child in the lunette of the façade of S. Maria Paganica. From the same cultural milieu derive some wooden sculptures in the Museum, including the Madonna Regina and St Balbina. International Gothic influences are instead evident in the monument to Ludovico Camponeschi in S. Giuseppe, executed by Gualtiero d'Alemagna in 1432, and in the fragmentary baptismal font, formerly in the cathedral, by the Milanese Giovanni de' Rettorii.

A first valid document of Aquilan Renaissance sculpture is the tabernacle in S. Maria del Soccorso, by Andrea dell'A., a pupil of Donatello active in Naples in the circle of Alfonso of Aragon, between 1455 and 1458. Of Silvestro dell'A., the leading Aquilan artist of the Renaissance, documented between 1471 and 1504, the city preserves a group of works which attest to his Tuscan derivation, from Rossellino and Desiderio, mingled with Roman elements, particularly from Bregno. These include: the tomb of Cardinal Agnifili in the cathedral, damaged by the earthquake of 1703, of 1476; the wooden St Sebastian in the Museum, of 1478; the monument to Maria and Beatrice Pereyra Camponeschi, of 1496; and the terracotta Madonna and Child, of 1499-1500, in S. Bernardino. The design and partial execution of the first tier of the Arca del Santo, of 1500-1505, are attributed to him, completed later by his pupils in the same church.

Also to be noted in S. Bernardino is a della Robbia altarpiece. In the Treasury of the Chapter, together with good examples of Aquilan sacred goldsmith work, which had a flourishing school between the 15th and 18th centuries, is the 1434 silver processional cross by Nicola d'Audraglare; in the Museum is the processional cross by G. Rosecci.

**

Giovanni Carandente

LARANTUKA, Apostolic Vicariate of

Situated on the island of Flores (Indonesia), it comprises the entire civil district of L., detached from the Apostolic Vicariate of the Lesser Sunda Islands by decree of 8 March 1951, and the two islands of Pantar and Alor, belonging to the Apostolic Vicariate of Atamboea. On the same date, the Apostolic Vicariate of the Lesser Sunda Islands was divided into the two other Apostolic Vicariates of Endeh and Ruteng.

The evangelization of this territory may be briefly summarized in three periods: 1) from the year 1556 to the year 1857; the Dominican Fathers announced the Gospel on the island of Flores and organized the first Christian communities; but in a painful sequence of wars and raids by Muslim and Dutch pirates, the missionary stations were repeatedly devastated, abandoned, and rebuilt; from the beginning of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th, missionary work remained almost paralyzed; 2) from the year 1857 to the year 1914; the Fathers of the Society of Jesus of the Dutch province resumed the work of evangelization in the district of L., where Catholics had dwindled to barely 4,000, sunk in bad habits and gross religious ignorance; 3) from the year 1914 to the present day: the Jesuits were succeeded by the Fathers of the Society of the Divine Word, to whom the new vicariate is entrusted.

The mission covers an area of approximately 7,575 sq. km. Out of a population of 270,750, Catholics number 90,000 and Muslims 10,000. On the island of Pantar there are more than 40,000 Protestants. The tribes inhabiting the district of L. are akin in customs and language, while the inhabitants of the two aforementioned islands resemble the Papuans. There are 26 religious priests, of whom 2 are indigenous, 137 churches, and 131 prayer houses. A minor seminary has recently been opened (1950), with 20 students. There are 69 elementary schools, 7 intermediate schools, one domestic science school, and one teacher training school. The first Apostolic Vicar is a native of the island of Timor, a religious of the Society of the Divine Word, and resides at L., the principal city of eastern Flores.