NEPI AND SUTRI, DIOCESES OF. — In Lazio, in the province of Viterbo, immediately subject to the Holy See. They cover an area of 782 sq. km. with a population of 63,854 inhabitants, divided into 35 parishes, served by 61 secular priests and 46 regular clergy, 14 male religious communities and 35 female. They share a major seminary with the other dioceses of upper Lazio, located at La Quercia near Viterbo.
Nepi is the Nepete or Nepet of the Etruscans; it was conquered by the Romans in 383 BC and became a bulwark against the Ciminian territory. Christianity reached Nepi in the pre-Constantinian age. A *Passio*, not much earlier than the 11th century, places on 24 August a Bishop Ptolemy of the Pentapolis and Tuscany, and a Roman, his disciple and bishop of Nepi, under Claudius. This is probably Claudius II (268–70), since the hagiographers of Suburbicarian Tuscany had the custom of placing their martyrs under this emperor. Over time, however, it was preferred to go back to Claudius I (41–54), i.e. the first half of the 1st century, and Ptolemy and Roman were spoken of as the two protomartyrs of the West. According to the *Passio*, they were beheaded in the city of the Pentapolis and buried not far away, in the estate of the matron Savinilla. The city of the Pentapolis would be identifiable with Nepi. Nevertheless, these two alleged martyrs of Nepi are unknown to all the ancient martyrological sources (cf. BHL 6984–87): Ptolemy and Roman appear among the names of Roman martyrs.
On the road coming from Rome, before reaching Nepi, in 1540 an ancient Christian cemetery was discovered beneath the church of St. Ptolemy, which was called the “Catacomb of Salviniella.” At the time, M. A. Boldetti could still count 560 loculi there; G. B. De Rossi judged it to date from the late 3rd and early 4th century. F. Ughelli and P. Gams, following Roman, place in the series of bishops of Nepi Miliotus, Claudius II, and Eulalius without adducing proof. The name of the earliest known bishop today is “Proiectitus,” who subscribed to the acts of the Roman synod of 465. Nepi, with its cathedral of Santa Maria, remained autonomous until 12 December 1435, when Eugenius IV, on account of the poverty to which the episcopal table had been reduced, united Sutri (v.). From then on the bishop was styled Bishop of Sutri and Nepi or of Nepi and Sutri, with residence alternating annually. The most celebrated figure in the series of the two united dioceses is the Dominican Michele Ghisleri, later Pope St. Pius V (v.).
In the territory of the diocese of Nepi were the ancient monasteries of San Biagio, San Benedetto, and San Elia. The last two were in the Valle Suppontina, not far from Castel Sant’Elia (v.), which took its name from the latter. Gregory the Great (Dial., 1,7,8) mentions Abbot Anastasius of the monastery of the Valle Suppontina, who was most probably one of the above. Of the monastery of San Elia the medieval basilica is preserved, with its very well-known frescoes and a unique collection of vestments, recently arranged in a hall adjoining the parish church. The Pontifical Sanctuary of the Madonna ad Rupes, entrusted to the Friars Minor of the Province of Santa Croce in Saxony, which owes its arrangement to Fr. Bernardo Döbing, who died bishop of Nepi and Sutri in 1917, is situated on the cliff and originated from one of the caves that in the 6th century housed a laura of monks.