MONTALCINO, diocese of. — A city in the province of Siena and the seat of a diocese, whose territory lies partly in the province of Siena and partly in that of Grosseto. It borders the dioceses of Siena, Pienza and Chiusi, Sovana and Pitigliano, and Grosseto.
It has an area of 800 sq. km., with a population of 40,000, of whom 39,980 are Catholics. It comprises 35 parishes served by 41 diocesan priests and 4 religious priests, 1 male and 12 female religious communities (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 275).
Before Pius II established the diocese of M., its territory had, from very ancient times, been divided
among the dioceses of Grosseto, Chiusi, and Arezzo. Nevertheless, as early as the eleventh century the popes had granted the abbots of the monastery of S. Antimo, eight kilometers from M., an almost episcopal jurisdiction over the churches of M. and its surroundings. Indeed, the parish church of the Most Holy Savior, later erected as the cathedral, was designated by Pius II as one of those nullius dioecesis. The abbots of Abbadia S. Salvatore exercised the same jurisdiction over the towns of Monte Amiata.
M., together with Corsignano, his birthplace, which he remodeled and renamed Pienza, was elevated to a diocese by Pius II in a bull dated 15 February 1462, issued at the Bagni di Petriolo near Siena, where the Pope was seeking relief for his failing health. The humanist Pontiff loved this hill, where in his youth he had stayed several times as a guest of the Friars of s. Francesco, and where he had a number of learned friends, such as Bernardo Lapini, a commentator on Petrarch. In his Commentarii he calls M. amplum et nobile appidum. Originally, a single bishop governed the two dioceses of Pienza and M.; subsequently they were separated, then reunited, then separated once again, definitively, in 1600.
The first bishop of the two united dioceses was Giovanni Cinughi, transferred from Chiusi; the first bishop of the diocese of Montalcino, separated in 1600, was Camillo Borghese, later archbishop of Siena. The diocese, however, considered by itself, was rather small, and therefore in 1772 Pope Clement XIV assigned it another 14 parishes, namely those that the diocese of Grosseto possessed on this side of the Ombrone River. The number of parishes thus rose to 35, as it remains today.
Among the 29 bishops who have occupied the see of M., particular mention should be made of Agostino Patrizi Piccolomini; Pope Pius III, who, as a cardinal, was its apostolic administrator; Antonio Bichi, later a cardinal; Fabio De Vecchi, to whom the enlargement of the episcopal residence and the country palace at Castelnuovo dell'Abbate are owed; Giuseppe-Maria Borgognini and Bernardino Ciani, learned canon lawyers; Giuseppe Pecci, who founded the Seminary in 1788; Paolo Bertolozzi, a Rosminian man of letters and philosopher; and Donnino Donnini, who transferred to the see of Arezzo. — Vedi tav. XCI.