NEPI AND SUTRI, diocese of. — In Latium, in the province of Viterbo, immediately subject to the Holy See. They have an area of 782 sq. km and a population of 63,854 inhabitants, divided among 35 parishes, with 61 secular and 46 regular priests, 14 male and 35 female religious communities. They have the major seminary common to the other dioceses of upper Latium, at La Quercia near Viterbo.
N. is the Nepete or Nepet of the Etruscans; it was conquered by the Romans in 383 B.C. and became the bulwark against Mount Cimino. Christianity entered N. in the pre-Constantinian age. A Passio, dating from not long before the 11th century, assigns to 24 August a Ptolemy, bishop of Pentapolis et Tusciae, and a Romanus, bishop of N., his disciple, under Claudius. This probably refers to Claudius II (268–70), since the hagiographers of Suburban Tuscia customarily placed their martyrs under this Emperor. But in time it was desired to go back to Claudius I (41–54), that is, to the first half of the 1st century, and Ptolemy and Romanus came to be spoken of as two protomartyrs of the West. According to the Passio, they were beheaded in civitate Pentapolis and buried not far away, on the small estate of the matron Savinilla. The civitas Pentapolis is to be identified with N. Nevertheless, the two alleged martyrs of Nepi are unknown to all the ancient martyrological sources (cf. BHL 6984–87): Ptolemy and Romanus occur among the names of the Roman martyrs.
On the road from Rome, before reaching N., an ancient Christian cemetery was discovered in 1540 beneath the church of S. Tolomeo, which was called the “catacomb of Salvinilla.” In his day M. A. Boldetti could still count 560 loculi there; G. B. De Rossi judged it to date from the end of the 3rd or the beginning of the 4th century. F. Ughelli and P. Gams, after Romanus, place Milionus, Claudius II, and Eulalius in the list of the bishops of N., without adducing evidence. The name of the oldest bishop known today is that of “Proiectitus,” who subscribed to the acts of the Roman Synod of 465. N., with the cathedral of S. Maria, remained autonomous until 12 December 1435, when Eugene IV, because of the poverty to which the episcopal mensa had been reduced, united it to the diocese of S. (v.). From then on the bishop was called bishop of S. and N. or of N. and S., with residence alternating annually. The most celebrated in the succession of the two united dioceses is the Dominican Michele Ghisleri, later pope and saint, Pius V (v.).
The ancient monasteries of S. Biagio, S. Benedetto, and S. Elia were situated within the territory of the diocese of N. The latter two lay in the Valle Suppentonia, not far from Castel S. Elia (v.), which received its name from the last of them. Gregory
the Great (Dial., 1, 7, 8) mentions the abbot Anastasius of the monastery of the Valle Suppentonia, who with considerable probability is to be identified with one of those mentioned above. The medieval Basilica of the monastery of S. Elia is preserved, with its famous frescoes and a unique collection of vestments, recently installed in a room adjoining the parish church. The Pontifical Shrine of the Madonna ad rupes, entrusted to the Friars Minor of the province of S. Croce in Saxony, whose arrangement is owed to Fr. Bernardo Döbing, who died bishop of N. and S. in 1917, is situated on the cliff and originated in one of the caves that in the 6th century housed a laura of monks.
BHL.: Ughelli, I, pp. 1096 ff.; N. Nardini, La cattedrale vescovale di S. Tolomeo in N., la pentapoli nepisina et il vero sito degli antichi Veienti, Falsici e Capenati, Roma 1677; Cappelletti, VI, pp. 195 ff.; Moroni, XLVII, pp. 278 ff.; [G. Ranghissi], Memorie o siano relax. istor. sull'origine dell'antichius. città di N., Todi 1845–47; id., Supplem. o siano addiz. alla prima parte delle Mem. istor., con la serie de' vescovi nepisini, Roma 1851; P. F. Kehr, Italia Pontif., II, Berlino 1907, pp. 176–81; Lanzoni, pp. 531–32; Martyr. Romanum, p. 357.