Marsi, Diocese of

MARSI, Diocese of. - In the province of L'Aquila, in Abruzzo. It extends over the region around the lake of Fucino, now drained, for 16,281 sq km.; it has a population of 125,000 inhabitants, of whom 124,700 are Catholics. It has 85 parishes, served by 105 diocesan priests and 28 regulars; it has the seminary, 6 male religious communities and 30 female (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 265). The diocese comprises 30 municipalities in the province of L'Aquila. Originally a suffragan of Chieti, it later became immediately subject to the Holy See.

The name of the diocese is that of one of the most ancient peoples of central Italy. A late passio (BHL, 7789) places in this region the martyrdom of Sts. Simplicius, Constantius and Victorian, entirely unknown to the ancient documents. Lanzoni (I, pp. 364-65) holds that the bishop Vaticanus who subscribed to the Synod of 501 was bishop of the M., probably with residence at Caelena, near the Fucino. A Ioannes Marsicanus is in the retinue of Pope Vigilius at Constantinople in 551 (Jaffé-Wattenbach, nos. 930, 935). St. Gregory relates that the Lombards placed monks and deacons in the land of the M. (Dialogi, IV, 21 and 23). But only the bulls of Paschal II (1114) and of Clement III (1118) fixed the boundaries of the diocese.

The first episcopal see was at S. Benedetto, with the cathedral of S. Sabina, a church now destroyed but which was believed to have been erected on the ruins of the Campidoglio of the ancient city of Marruvium. Benedict IX had divided the diocese, but Stephen X (1057-58) reunited it. Gregory XIII, with the bull In suprema dignitatis of 1 January 1580, transferred the see to Pescina, raising to cathedral the church of the Madonna della Neve, which took the name of S. Maria delle Grazie and was finished in 1596 by Bishop B. Peretti. The episcopal residence is in Avezzano. The patron of the diocese is St. Sabinian (29 Aug.).

Among the bishops are remembered: St. Berard of the counts of M., later cardinal in the time of Paschal II; Nicola da Celano (1254); Bishop Jacopo (1276); Angelo Maccapani (1445); Cardinal Marcello Crescenzi (1533); Matteo Colli, who transferred the see to Pescina (1596); G. Paolo Caccia (1648); D. Pietra who restored the Seminary of Pescina (1664); F. Corradi (1680) and N. De Vecchi (1719).

The diocese had a flourishing development of sacred buildings, unfortunately in part totally destroyed by the earthquake of 1915. There are remembered at Alba Fucense, a city of the Equi, the ambo in the Romanesque church of S. Pietro, the work of the Roman marble-workers Giovanni and Andrea. At Luco dei M., the Romanesque church of S. Maria delle Grazie, rebuilt in the 13th century on the temple of the goddess Angizia. At Magliani dei M., the ancient Malleanum, the church of S. Luca, by the masters Giovanni and Martino. Ogival facade of the 15th century with portals of Cistercian type of the 15th century, four reliefs of the 13th century and a rose window of the 15th century; it was rebuilt after the earthquake of 1915. In the parish church of S. Maria di Loreto, a wooden statue of the Madonna with the Child (15th century). In Ortucchio, the church of S. Orante (a monk who came from Calabria, d. 1431), formerly of S. Maria (bull of Paschal II, 25 Feb. 1115). In Rosciolo is noted S. Lucia in Valle Porcianeta, a Romanesque church earlier than 1080, with a polygonal apse of 1200, with three orders of small columns, an iconostasis, a trilobate tabernacle, an ambo with scenes of Jonah, the work of Roberto and Nicodemo of Guardiagrele. The church of S. Maria delle Grazie has the date 1456 on the architrave; Romanesque portal of the 13th century; restored in 1935. At Scurcola Marsicana, the remains of the church of S. Maria della Vittoria erected by Charles of Anjou after the battle of Tagliacozzo in which he defeated Conradin of Swabia (23 Aug. 1268). Noteworthy there is a polychrome olive-wood sculpture of the 13th century. At Trasacco (Trans Aquas), the church of Sts. Rufinus and Cesidius with three naves and a fourth added in 1618; a wooden statue of St. Cesidius (1425); a Romanesque baptismal font in the treasury and a processional Cross of the 15th century.

Enrico Josi