It has an area of 200 sq. km. with a population of 260,000 inhabitants, of whom 250,000 are Catholics; it comprises 111 parishes with 265 diocesan priests and 100 regular clergy; 17 male and 55 female religious communities (*Ann. Pont.*, 1951, p. 291).
I. HISTORY
The ancient city of N. (*Naòlz*, in Oscan *Novla* meaning "new city") was, after Capua, the most important and richest city in the hinterland of Campania. According to Hecataeus (500 B.C.), it was inhabited by the Ausoni or Aurunci; around 600 B.C. it became a center of Etruscan expansion and by the end of the 5th century B.C. it fell into the hands of the Samnites. In 327 B.C. it sent 2,000 men to aid Naples, engaged in the Second Samnite War; but after the alliance between Rome and Naples was concluded, it was attacked and devastated by Quintus Fabius in 313 B.C.; in 311 B.C. it formed an alliance with Rome. During the Second Punic War, the Senate and the aristocratic party succeeded in keeping Nola loyal to Rome. Sulla besieged it twice: in 89 B.C., after defeating the Samnites at Pompeii, and in 88 B.C., when he succeeded in capturing II. Shortly afterward, Spartacus laid waste to the region. The name of Augustus is particularly linked to Nola, as he built a grand aqueduct from the sources of the Serino to the main centers of Campania. The *gens Octavia* possessed large estates in Nola, and Augustus died there in 14 A.D.Among the ancient monuments to be remembered are the necropolis, the amphitheater, the theater, and the temple that Tiberius is said to have erected in memory of Augustus. Special mention should be made of the Abella Stele, which contains in Oscan the treaty regulating the administration and property rights of the area of the sanctuary of Hercules, located on the border between Nola and Abella (first half of the 2nd century B.C.). In 410 Nola was taken by the Goths of Alaric; in 455 it was destroyed by the Vandals of Gaiseric. In 647 it was united with the Lombard Duchy of Benevento, and in 849 it passed to the Principality of Salerno. Charles I of Anjou granted it as a fief. In 1528 it returned to the state domain.