MONREALE, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - City and archdiocese in Sicily, in the province of Palermo. It has a population of 200,000 inhabitants, of whom 199,500 are Catholics; it has 50 parishes served by 180 diocesan priests and 40 regular priests, a seminary, 6 male religious communities and 30 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 275).
The abbey of M. arose by the will of the king of Sicily William II in the years 1174-76. According to an ancient tradition, a monastery founded by St. Gregory the Great already existed on the site, and its ruins were later used for the new construction. Its first abbot was Theobald, and the monastery was populated by numerous monks from the abbey of Cava de' Tirreni. Exempt from the archbishop of Palermo by a privilege of Alexander III from the very year of its foundation, in 1183 (May 2) M. was erected as a metropolis by Pope Lucius III with Catania as a suffragan, to which Syracuse was added in 1188. Thus the abbot became archbishop and metropolitan, and the monks formed the cathedral Chapter. Subsequently all the privileges obtained from King William for the new monastery were confirmed, and the monks also obtained that of the pontifical insignia throughout the diocese. The epidemic that struck the whole of Sicily in 1362 left the abbey deserted for 14 years, so much so that Pope Gregory XI was forced to gather there a certain number of monks from the various monasteries of Sicily, in order to re-establish the Chapter there.
On July 3, 1483 Sixtus IV approved the statute of the new Benedictine Congregation of Sicily, to which M. also joined, but a few years later, in 1506, by order of Julius II, it passed into membership of the Cassinese one. Meanwhile another suffragan had joined the archdiocese during the 15th century, Augusta. The union with that of Palermo, which took place on July 7, 1775, was not lasting. Reconstituted anew, it had as suffragans the dioceses of Catania, Syracuse, Piazza and Caltagirone. The monks were expelled from the abbey following the suppressive laws of the last century. At present the dioceses of Caltanissetta and Agrigento are suffragans. The Cathedral is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin under the title of St. Mary the New.
Among the archbishops are remembered: card. Giovanni Proccamazza (1278); card. Aussio Despuig de Podio (1458); card. Pompeo Colonna (1531); Alessandro Farnese (1536);
Ludovico de Torres (1584), to whom the founding of the Seminary is due; Traiano d'Acquaviva d'Aragona (1739); among the monks: Paolo Catania, author of a history of the monastery; Mauro Marchese, who edited a new edition of the works of St. Bruno.
Bibliography6 works
Milano 1914; Montis Regalis ecclesiae synodus IV..., Palermo 1932; P. F. Kobe, Italia pontificia, VIII, Berlino 1935, p. 52; Cottineau, II, col. 1889; C. A. Garufi, Per la storia dei monasteri di Sicilia nel tempo normanno, in Archivio storico per la Sicilia, 6 (1940), pp. 1-66; S. Spinnato, M., Palermo 1942.
Ambrogio Mancone
ART
The cathedral of M. constitutes the most splendid example of architecture from the Norman age in Sicily.
On the outside the best-preserved part is the apse section, characteristic for its three orders of interlaced blind arcades that lighten the mass, standing out through the vivid chromatic contrast of limestone and lava. In the interior the clear basilical structure has not been tampered with by the addition of the Baroque chapels, which are independent organisms. The Muslim architectural elements (the pointed arch) and Byzantine ones (pulpits on the capitals, and certain iconographic details, such as the prothesis and the diaconicon and the three terminal apses) are elaborated and fused with the same perfect balance that is achieved in the decoration. This covers the whole interior with oriental splendor: the floor has the character of Muslim art; Byzantine are the mosaics, to which local workshops probably also contributed; they are the most extensive in Sicily, and cover all the walls, with episodes from Genesis and the New Testament, scenes from the lives of Sts. Peter and Paul, images of saints and prophets, and, in the apse, the dominant image of the Redeemer, similar in iconography to that of the cathedral of Cefalù. But these mosaics, already almost completed in 1182, belong to that late Byzantine current that tends toward a conventional pathos.
To the same period as the decoration belong the bronze doors of the two portals: those of the main door sculpted in 1186 with facile pictorial vivacity by Bonanno Pisano; and those of the side door, in which Barisano da Trani instead seeks the softness and elegance of ivories.
Among the late additions the most notable is the chapel of the Crucifix, begun in 1692 to a design by fra Giovanni da Monreale, in which the most lavish decoration of sculptures and marble inlays is typical of Sicilian Baroque. In the 18th century, the ancient porch having been demolished, the small portico of the facade was built between the two great Norman towers, now truncated.
To the right of the church is the cloister of the ancient monastery, perfectly preserved, the most extensive and evocative among those of the 12th century. The Arab imprint dominates in the architecture, in the lively mosaic ornaments of the columns, in particular in the stem-shaped fountain placed in a corner, enclosed by arcades. The capitals, with the most varied figurative decorations
(in one is represented William II who, as in a musician of the church, is shown offering the temple to the Virgin), display the most diverse characteristics of Romanesque art, not only of the schools of southern Italy, but also of northern Italy and beyond the Alps, testifying to what a rich center of culture the monastery was. - See pl. XC.
Bibliography3 works
Mario Zocca