LODI, DIOCESE OF. – A city and diocese in the province of Milan. Over an area of approximately 700 km².
It has 205,491 inhabitants, of whom 205,400 are Catholic; 115 parishes and 23 vicariates served by 320 diocesan priests and 31 regular clergy, one seminary, 3 male religious communities and 89 female religious communities (Annuario Pontificio, 1951, p. 251).
The ancient name was Lauda, Latinized as Laus Pompeia. The city is believed to have been founded by the Gallic Boii, who descended in the 3rd century BC and settled in the last stretch of Insubria, bounded by the Adda to the east, the Lambro to the west, and the Po to the south. In 89 BC, by Pompey Strabo, L. was made a Latin colony, and in 49 BC by Julius Caesar it obtained Roman citizenship. At Laus Pompeia, the martyrs SS. Nabore, Vittore, and Felice suffered.
The first bishop who embodies the entire religious and civil history of the people of Lodi is St. Bassiano, who governed the diocese from 378 to 413. He died on 19 January and was buried in the basilica he had built to the Twelve Apostles, later named after him. The archives of ancient L. were largely lost during the barbarian invasions and the two destructions carried out by Milan in 1111 and 1158, in which year ancient L. moved further south along the Adda, where it had its commercial port. There, the body of St. Bassiano was transferred on 4 November 1163. The Commune of L. arose in the 11th century; it took part in the First Crusade, in which it earned the coat of arms of the red cross on a gold field. Its wealth came from the city and territory being situated between three great river routes and the Muzza, an irrigation canal crossing the entire Lodigiano, dug in 1220.
Among the bishops of L., after St. Bassiano, special mention should be made of St. Ciriaco (d. 451); St. Tiziano (d. 476); Andrea, who in 996 restored the basilica of St. Bassiano. In the new L., the bishops flourished: St. Alberto Quadrelli (1168–73), secondary patron and founder of the Clergy Consortium; Paolo Cadamosto, legate of Urban VI in Hungary, who in 1323 rebuilt the basilica of St. Bassiano; Cardinal Gerardo Landriani (1419) and Cardinal Ludovico Simonetta (1537–61); Carlo Pallavicino, who in 1457 consolidated several inactive hospitals into one large hospital.
Lodi, Façade of the Cathedral (12th–13th centuries). The bell tower dates to 1550, designed by Callisto Piazza.
The cloister is also very beautiful, and in 1495 he endowed the Cathedral with the so-called “Treasury of St. Bassiano,” largely confiscated by Napoleon I; Antonio Scarampi, who in 1575 built the Seminary and the orphanages. The diocese is a suffragan of Milan. L. ceased to be a free Commune in 1335, when it submitted to the Dukes of Milan.
Religious monuments: the Cathedral, built in 1158 and much remodeled in 1761; S. Lorenzo (12th century); S. Francesco (1252), rich in frescoes from every century; the Incoronata, begun after a miracle in 1487, a true jewel of art justly admired; S. Filippo (17th century) with the annexed monastery, now the civic library; S. Maria Maddalena (1720), a grand temple-school by Juvarra; S. Cristoforo (1565) by Pellegrini. Outside L. are admired the basilica of St. Bassiano, in ancient L., and the abbey church of Abbadia Cerreto (c. 1136).
Notable figures: Ottone Morena and his son Acerbo, who wrote the Lodigian chronicle of their time (1111–64); Oldrado da Ponte, a learned jurist (d. 1235); Maffeo Vegio, canon of St. Peter and Christian humanist (d. 1458); Franchino Gaffurio, music theorist (d. 1522); Defendente Lodi, called the “Muratori of Lodi” for his historical expertise (d. 1656); Fr. Francesco Quaresimi, a Franciscan, author of works on the Holy Land (d. 1656); Fr. Pietro Codazzo (d. 1549), the first Italian Jesuit, whose estate enabled St. Ignatius to establish himself in Rome; Francesco De Lemene, poet (d. 1704); Fr. Cesario Tondini, Barnabite, who devoted himself to the return of Orthodox Russia to the Catholic Church (d. 1897); St. Francesca Saverio Cabrini (v.), founder of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Shrines: the shrine of the Madonna dei Cappuccini in Casalpusterlengo is famous, erected following documented apparitions in 1574.