NEVERS, DIOCESE OF. – A city, capital of the Nièvre department, situated at the confluence of the river of the same name with the Loire. The territory of the diocese coincides with that of the department and extends over 68,165 sq. km., with a population of 248,559 (1946), of whom 240,000 are Catholics. It comprises 4 archpriestships and 25 deaneries with 309 parishes, served by 235 diocesan priests and 7 regulars, two seminaries: major and minor; it has 2 male religious communities and 34 female (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 287). The diocese is a suffragan of Sens. The patrons of the diocese are SS. Cyrus and Julitta. It is the “Noviodunum” conquered by Julius Caesar (De bello Gallico, VII, 55, 1 and 5). In the 4th century A.D. it formed part of the kingdom of Burgundy and was called “Neviranum”; it later became a county in the 9th century; Peter of Courtenay married in 1181 Agnes of N. and granted the city privileges and extended the county, which, in 1272, through the marriage of Yolanda of N. with Robert of Dampierre, became a fief, first of the house of Flanders and then of that of Burgundy. In 1538 it successively became the duchy of Cleves, of the Gonzagas and of Mazarin until 1789. It was reunited with France in 1789. The city suffered greatly during the Hundred Years’ War and the religious wars.
The catalogue of bishops is preserved in two liturgical books of N.; in a Sacramentary of the 11th century (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, ms. lat. no. 17333, p. 149) composed by Bishop Hugh the Great (1013–63), which goes back to Gerard his predecessor, and in an evangelary of the 9th century in which a list was later added that also includes Bishop Hugh (British Museum, ms. Harleianus 2790, fol. 19r). Robert of St-Marien (Codex of Auxerre 132, p. 91) has a catalogue up to Thibaud (1177–89), in which the first ten bishops are indicated as having their see in the church of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, while the others are indicated as being in S. Cyriacus; the change of name of the cathedral took place under Charlemagne. The first bishop listed is Taurician, present at the Council of Épaone in 517; then a series of bishops who attended the various councils of France, namely Rusticus or Rusticius at Orléans in 538 and 541; as Aridius there in 549 and at Paris in 552; Euladius at Lyon in 570, Agricola also at Lyon in 581 and at Mâcon in 581 and 585; Rauracus at Paris in 614, at Clichy in 627, at Chalon-sur-Saône in 650. Jerome obtained from Charlemagne the restitution of the goods of his church; Jonas was at the Council of Paris in 829; Herman was favoured by Charles the Bald; Abbo was at the Council of Soissons in 866; Eumenes is mentioned in a diploma of Charles the Fat in 886 and was at the Council of Mehan-sur-Loire in 891; Franco is mentioned in documents of King Odo in the years 894, 897 and 903. In later times the following cardinals are remembered: P. Bertrand (1320–22); P. of Bourbon-Vendôme (1540–46); then E. de Cherry (1635); G. d’Augnes (1740); J. A. Tinzeau (1752); P. de Seguiran (1782). The diocese was suppressed on 15 July 1801 and annexed to the new diocese of Autun; it was precisely re-established by the Concordat of 11 June 1817, but in fact only in 1823. The cathedral, dedicated to SS. Cyrus and Julitta, was very damaged by the bombings of 1944. On the remains of the primitive building were erected in Romanesque style the transept and the apse which contains a fresco of the Maiestas Domini (12th century); a second apse is found towards the entrance; the nave is of the 13th century; the choir is from the first half of the 14th century, i.e. when it was consecrated, in 1331; the bell tower is from the 16th century but without a façade.
---
A Benedictine monastery of the end of the 9th century, it was united in 1709 with the seminary. S. Vittore, a Benedictine priory founded in 1053, later transformed into the monastery of S. Maria della Carità. Spanish and Flemish elements are found in the façade of the church of S. Maria (first half of the 17th century). The Jesuit College “à la Flèche” was built by the Jesuit E. Martellange. In the ancient park of the dukes of N. is the chapel of the monastery of St-Gildard, an ancient priory, today the mother house of the Sisters of Charity of N.: it preserves the body of St. Marie Bernarda Soubirous (v. 1860–79), canonized in 1933. Near the cathedral was the episcopal palace (18th century), now used as the Frédéric Blandin municipal museum, containing the collection of ceramics of N., a city where this industry was introduced in the 16th century. The ducal palace, erected in the 15th and 16th centuries, today serves as the law courts. In the archaeological museum are preserved notable decorated capitals, such as those of Garchizy with the story of St. Martin, of S. Salvatore with monsters and a donkey playing music, and of the destroyed S. Pietro (E. Mâle, *L'art religieux en France au XIIe siècle*, Paris 1925, passim and fig. 244). It also preserves the Bible of Souvigny.
In the church of St-Arigle a Merovingian sarcophagus was found containing the relics of the saint (d. 594) and having on the outside a decoration of seven crosses, Namur (v.), and to one found in a group of tombs at St-Parize-le-Châtel in 1809, and to two of the same kind today in the museum of N., coming one from the excavations in the church of St-Genest, the other from those of the ancient abbey of St-Martin. In 1858 the sarcophagus was removed and seems to have been lost (J. Massilon-Rouvet, *Le sarcophage de St-Parize-le-Châtel* [Nièvre], in *Bull. archéol. du Comité*, 1809, pp. 350–55). At 73 km northeast of N. is situated Clamecy, formerly a pantheon, which was created a diocese by Innocent IV in 1245, with jurisdiction limited to the hospital founded by William IV of N. and to the church of S. Martin and with the title of bishop of Bethlehem. The first bishop was Geoffrey (1245–51); the last Fr. Ch. Durant de Lironcourt (1777–1801). It was suppressed in 1801 and the title passed to the abbey nullius of St-Maurice in Switzerland.
Recent excavations (1947 and 1949–50) have brought to light the ancient baptistery which dates back to the 6th century. It is an octagonal hall with eight apses, alternating rectangular and semicircular, on the model of the baptistery of S. Giovanni in Fonte in Milan, called *octachorum* (CIL, V, p. 617, no. 2). Eight columns, of which two survive, one in green marble, the other in white marble, support the dome entirely covered with mosaics on a gold background; there is a drainage channel for water, but no trace of an aqueduct. The building, on the model of the baptisteries of Albenga and Fréjus, shows restorations between the end of the 8th and the beginning of the 9th century (Bishop Jerome: 795–815) and alterations after the fires of 993 and 1028 (R. Louis, *Le baptistère de la cathédrale de N. du VIe au XIIe siècle*, in *Bulletin monumental*, 108 [1950], pp. 153–80). In the Treasury a 5th-century ivory plaque depicts on the left the scene of the Infant Jesus in the manger with the ox and the ass, and on the right the Epiphany with the three Magi (*Bulletin monumental*, 42 [1884], p. 711). In 1724 Lord Harley acquired the Sacramentary of the church of N. (now Harley Collection, mss. 2991–92 of the British Museum in London). The 10th-century manuscript seems to be a copy of that of the monastery of S. Columba of Sens, with some modifications for the church of N. Another Sacramentary is that now in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris (ms. 17333), written for Bishop Hugh (1011 or 1013–65) with fine miniatures. An evangelary donated by Bishop Herman (840–60) to the cathedral of N. is also today in the British Museum (Harley Collection ms. 2790). The abbatial church of S. Stephen, erected between 1066–97, the year in which it was consecrated, is linked to the Romanesque school of Auvergne, with Burgundian influences; it has three naves with a transept, choir and ambulatory and an upper gallery with paired windows (H. Du Ranquet, *Influences auvergneuses dans l'église St Etienne de N.*, in *Revue d'Auvergne*, 1909, pp. 102–22). Today it is a parish church. S. Martino, a monastery of the 8th century, was restored c. 1130 at the time of Bishop Fromond (L. Seiry, *L'abbaye de St Martin de N.*, Nevers 1902). S. Salvatore,