MOLFETTA, DIOCESE OF. – A city and diocese in the province of Bari. It has united to it the dioceses of Giovinazzo and Terlizzi. It has a population of 90,000 inhabitants, almost all Catholic. It comprises 15 parishes served by 83 diocesan priests and 22 regular clergy, one seminary, 4 male religious communities and 17 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 273).
HISTORY. – The year of the establishment of the episcopal see is disputed. Gams and others place the first bishop, Giovanni, around 1136, while others, following Ughelli, place the same bishop in 1179, since a certain Giovanni appears in the list of participants at the Lateran Council of that year, convoked by Alexander III. It seems certain, however, that the origin of the episcopate must date back to the mid-12th century, as suffragans of Bari. Among the prelates of the diocese, the figure of G. B. Cibo, a Genoese (1473), stands out; he was transferred here by Sixtus IV, who the following year made him a cardinal and, in 1484, Pope Innocent VIII. Despite his brief stay, the future pontiff retained a grateful memory of Molfetta, for as soon as he was elected he made the diocese independent of the metropolitan see of Bari and declared it immediately subject to the Holy See. Other notable bishops include: Alessio Celadoni (1508), who took part in the Fifth Lateran Council; Ferdinando Ponzetti (1517), a Florentine who later became a cardinal, assisted by his nephew Giacomo, under whose episcopate the terrible sack of 1529 by Lautrec took place; and Carlo Loffredi (1670), a Theatine, who pacified clergy and magistracy and promoted various charitable works in favor of religious institutions. In 1818, Pius VII united to Molfetta the suppressed dioceses of Terlizzi and Giovinazzo, but later (1835), at the request of the Bourbon Ferdinand II, granted the two sees the restoration of their episcopal dignity, while keeping them united to Molfetta and directly dependent on the Holy See.
MONUMENTS. – During its period of greatest prosperity, Molfetta, like the other neighboring cities, abounded in notable monuments, among which the massive structure of the Old Church or S. Corrado still stands out; this was the ancient cathedral of the medieval borough, begun in the second half of the 12th century and completed at the end of the 13th. Its structures bear the mark of the various interruptions the building had to undergo, asymmetrical in its irregularity, with two truncated towers flanking a facade that was never completed, and two three-tiered bell towers with arched crowns. The interior, almost entirely intact, expresses a robust vigour in the static quality of its elements. Four cruciform piers with attached semi-columns support the polygonal drums of three domes: the central one ellipsoidal, the others hemispherical. The drums rest on pendentives adorned with niches with spherical caps or, in the third, with arched frames. The intrados of the vaults is made up of regular courses of cornices, covered externally by pyramids of stone slabs (chiancarelle), connected by means of small walls to the outer walls, so as to form a single complex that contributes uniformly to the equilibrium and stability of the structure. These structural elements (domes, wall connections, capitals, ogival curves, decorations, etc.) give the church exceptional importance in the history of Apulian art. In it, however, one can perceive Muslim and Byzantine, Lombard and indigenous influences, according to the best school that raised the characteristic cathedrals of this region. Another notable church is the New Cathedral, with its heavy Baroque facade (17th century). Inside: a Visitation by C. Rosa and an Assumption by C. Giaquinto, a Molfettese (1699–1765); in the sacristy:
MOLFETTA, DIOCESE OF - Apse of the Cathedral (13th century).
Molfetta.
a silver statue of St. Corrado (17th century), a magnificent ciborium by the Abruzzese A. Pascale (16th century), a miniature missal from the early 1500s and the remains of the rich carved choir stalls from the Old Cathedral (1470). Also worthy of mention is the church of S. Bernardino (1451), with two notable paintings: The Madonna of the Cucito and the Flight into Egypt, attributed to Cozza (the latter also to the Venetian school of the 16th century), and a Christ by Ribera; and the small church of the Madonna dei Martiri (erected in 1162 by the Norman William II), which still preserves intact the transept, the apse and the dome, the Byzantine icon of the Virgin, said to have arrived here from Constantinople in 1188, and a few structures of the adjoining Hospital of the Crusaders (1095).