MONTEFIASCONE, DIOCESE of - In Latium, in the province of Viterbo; it has an area of 475 sq. km., with a population of 40,000 inhabitants, all Catholics, distributed among 21 parishes, with 50 secular priests and 19 regulars, with 5 male congregations and 20 female (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 277). It has the minor seminary in M., and the major seminary, shared with the other dioceses of upper Latium, at La Quercia near Viterbo.
Continuous discoveries have attested that where M. stands there would have been an Etruscan city not yet identified. Just as the etymology of M. has not been clarified either, which from an origin of the highest classical antiquity descends to a prosaic allusion to the flasks (fiaschi) of its renowned wine. In the Middle Ages the settlement developed mainly in the lower part, adjacent to the Via Cassia, around the church of St. Flaviano, which in its Romanesque parts dates back to the 12th century. Its interior, recently subjected to a highly successful restoration by the Superintendency of Monuments of Latium, consists of two superimposed churches and is of great architectural interest.
The oldest notice referring to M. is a privilege of Leo IV to Bishop Virbono of Tuscania, from the year 852, which Innocent III inserted in a letter of his dated 12 Oct. 1207 (PL 215, 1234).
Urban IV (1261-64) had the fortress built for summer residence, which was also the object of care on the part of the popes his successors, and, during the Avignon exile, it was the seat of the rector of the Patrimony of St. Peter.
Until 1369 M. was part of the diocese of Bagnoregio, when Urban V, on 30 Aug. of that year, with the bull Cum illius, constituted the diocese of M. with territory taken from the surrounding dioceses of Castro, Viterbo, Tuscania and Bagnoregio. But the first bishop was appointed only seven years later, in 1376, due to the precarious conditions of the Holy See in Italy. It was the Augustinian Pietro Arzensi who had the misfortune to follow the antipope Clement VII and, consequently, two years later, was deposed by Urban VI. In 1436, Eugene IV, detaching the city of Corneto from the diocese of Viterbo and Tuscania, revived the ancient episcopal see of Tarquinia and united it to M. This union remained until 1854, when Pius IX united Corneto (Tarquinia) to Civitavecchia.
Among the bishops of M. the figure of Cardinal Marcantonio Barbarigo (1687-1706) stands out, founder of the famous "Barbarigo" Seminary and promoter of the Institute of the Schools of the Maestre Pie. M. is immediately subject to the Holy See. - See plate XCIII.
Bibliography8 works
Benedetto Pesci