MODIGLIANA, Diocese of. - Suffragan of Florence. It comprises 7 municipalities in the province of Forlì and one in the province of Florence. Population 41,549, of whom 41,514 are Catholics; 83 parishes, 114 churches; 91 diocesan priests and 11 regulars; one seminary. Patron St. Stephen, pope and martyr.
A small city in the Marzeno Valley, 18 km. from Faenza and 33 from Forlì, the provincial capital. Many historians in all likelihood recognize in it the castrum Mutilum mentioned by Livy (cf. Historiae, XXXI, 3; XXXIII, 12). It belonged to the territory of the Exarchate (cf. two parchments of the years 963, 967 in the Archiepiscopal Archive of Ravenna). From the first half of the 10th century until 1370 it was under the dominion of the counts Guidi. After a brief period of autonomous life it passed to the Republic of Florence, whose political fortunes it followed until the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy. The parish church of S. Stefano in M., mentioned for the first time in a parchment of the Archiepiscopal Archive of Ravenna (B. 322, 892), was always considered, for its venerable antiquity and the extent of its jurisdiction, as one of the most important centers from which religious life radiated in the upper Romagna. Ecclesiastically it was under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Faenza until 1850, the year in which Pius IX, granting the wishes of Grand Duke Leopold II and of the people of Modigliana, raised it to an episcopal see with the bull Ex quo licet immerito of 7 July. The first bishop was Msgr. M. Melini (1854-64).
Sacred buildings: in M., the parish church of S. Stefano, now the cathedral, of ancient construction, rebuilt in 1500 and consecrated by Pope Julius II (1506), enlarged in 1660, when Pope Alexander VII raised it to an illustrious Collegiate church. It was restored in 1872-95 and recently by Msgr. Massimiliani. Beneath the choir is a graceful crypt called "of the dead Jesus" with artistic wooden statues of the Passion. Adjacent to the cathedral is the sanctuary of the B. Vergine del Cantone with a fresco of the B. Vergine from 1400 and with valuable paintings by S. Lega, a native of Modigliana. Churches of S. Bernardo, of S. Domenico and of the Monastery of the Augustinian nuns. In Marradi: the archpriestal church dedicated to the martyr St. Lawrence. Church of S. Reparata in Badia del Borgo, formerly belonging to the Vallombrosan Order, with panels attributed to the school of Ghirlandaio. S. Barnaba in Gamogna, an ancient hermitage inhabited by St. Peter Damian. In Dovadola: sanctuary of Montepaolo, formerly an ancient hermitage of St. Anthony of Padua. In Castrocaro: the archpriestal church, formerly conventual, of Sts. Francis and Nicholas with panels by Palmezzano and a processional cross of 1450. In S. Benedetto in Alpe (formerly Bifurcum): church of S. Benedetto, formerly an ancient Benedictine abbey, with visible remains of the ancient crypt.
Bibliography4 works
Francesco Mancorti