Nola, Diocese of

NOLA, Diocese of. - City and diocese of Campania, in the province of Naples.

It has an area of 200 sq km with a population of 260,000 inhabitants, of whom 250,000 are Catholics; it has 111 parishes with 265 diocesan priests and 100 regulars; 17 male religious communities and 55 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 291).

I. HISTORY

Ancient N. (Ναόλα, in Oscan Novia "new city") was, after Capua, the most important and wealthiest city of the Campanian hinterland. According to Hecataeus (500 B.C.), it belonged to the Ausones or Aurunci; around 600 it became a center of Etruscan expansion, and at the end of the 5th century it fell into the possession of the Samnites. In 327 it sent a body of 2,000 men to the aid of Naples, which was engaged in the Second Samnite War; but once the treaty of alliance between Rome and Naples was concluded, it was, in 313, attacked and devastated by Quintus Fabius; in 311 it formed an alliance with Rome. During the Hannibalic War, the Senate and the aristocratic party succeeded in keeping N. loyal to Rome. Sulla besieged it twice: in 89, after defeating the Samnites at Pompeii, and in 80, when he succeeded in taking it by storm. Shortly afterward Spartacus spread ruin there. Particularly linked to N. is the name of Augustus, who built there a grand aqueduct from the springs of the Serino to the principal centers of Campania. At N. the "gens Octavia" owned large estates, and Augustus died there in 14 A.D.

Of the ancient monuments, mention should be made of the necropolis, the amphitheater, the theater, and the temple that Tiberius is said to have erected to the memory of Augustus. Particular mention deserves the Cippus Abellanus, which contains in the Oscan language the treaty regulating the administration and the property rights of the area of the sanctuary of Hercules, situated on the border between N. and Abella (first half of the 2nd century B.C.). In 410 N. was taken by the Goths of Alaric; in 155 it was destroyed by the Vandals of Genseric. United in 647 with the Lombard Duchy of Benevento, in 849 it passed to the Principality of Salerno. Charles I of Anjou granted it as a fief. In 1528 it returned to the royal domain.

II. THE ORIGINS OF THE CHURCH OF NOLA

The oldest accounts are preserved in the Carmina natalizia IV and V, composed in the years 398 and 399 for the feast of St. Felix the priest. In them St. Paulinus narrates the vicissitudes of Bishop Maximus and of his presbyter Felix during the persecution, bringing out in particular the work of the latter, who is the saint most celebrated at N. In these verses are reported the data of a popular tradition, rather than a true and certain history; every certain chronology is lacking in them, so that only by conjecture could one establish the time in which Bishop Maximus lived. Later a tradition also made of Felix a bishop and moreover a martyr.

Quintus is the second bishop of N. of whom news has come down, owed likewise to St. Paulinus in his V Natale. The third bishop is Paul, who consecrated in 403 or 404 the monumental Basilica erected by St. Paulinus in honor of St. Felix (cf. Ep., XXXII). The episcopate of St. Paulinus (v.), who succeeded Paul, did not begin until between 408 and 416. There follow: Paulinus the younger, d. 11 Sept. 442 (epitaph); Felix, d. 9 Feb. 484 (epitaph). Eliminating a bishop Deodatus, who never existed but was confused with an archpresbyter of the same name, there follow John Talaia (484) who, forced by the Monophysites to leave the see of Alexandria and take refuge in Rome, received from Felix III the Church of N. (Liberatus, Breviarium, 18); Theodosius, d. 7 Dec. 490 (epitaph); Serenus, of whom several letters of Pope Gelasius (492-96) speak and who was present at the Roman Synod of 449; Priscus, 25 Feb. 523 (epitaph); Leo I, of this name (536), present at the Synod held in this year under the patriarch Menas; John (555-60), mentioned in two letters of Pelagius I (overlooked by Lanzoni); Gaudentius, mentioned in two letters of St. Gregory the Great (594, 595). To an uncertain year of the 7th century belong Aurelian and Senatus, known through their epitaphs. Later are Leo III, Lupinus, Sixtus, another Leo, John around 940. A contemporary of Urban II (1088-99) and of Paschal II (1099-1118) was Bishop William. When Salerno was erected a metropolis around 983, it appears that John XV on 12 July 989 subjected N. to it; and once the principality fell through the work of Robert Guiscard, Naples asserted its rights over the diocese of N., but Paschal II (1100-1106) still declared N. subject to the archbishop of Salerno, Alfano. Only in 1179 is N. found clearly dependent on Naples; at the Lateran Council of that year the bishop of Nola, Bernard, is registered among the suffragans of the Church of Naples, of which it is today likewise a suffragan.

III. THE NEW PAOLINE CONSTRUCTIONS. THE SURVIVING MONUMENTS OF CIMITILE

When Paulinus came for the second time to N. (394 and 395) he found around the tomb of his patron other basilicas; according to the natal poem VI (400) five, according to letter XXXII, to Severus (403 and 404), four.

St. Felix had been buried outside the walls, in open country; his body had been enclosed in a modest tomb, covered by a marble slab sheathed in silver; two holes, opened in the marble, allowed aromas to reach into the interior of the tomb, protected by a wooden aedicula. Later a basilica with three naves had been built there, whose vault rested on shapeless masonry pillars, and the aedicula occupied the western end of the main nave. Paulinus enlarged the Basilica, replaced the pillars with marble columns, supporting round arches, on which rested a vault, perhaps decorated with stuccoes, now destroyed. In the intrados of the arches and on the frieze that surmounts them a rich mosaic decoration with a blue background and scrolls of tendrils; on the frieze, an inscription of eight hexameters, in golden letters, which unfolded in a double row around the four walls. It is the poem that begins: Parvus erat locus, ante sacris augustus agendis. On the frieze of this same peristyle, but on the outer side, another poem in golden letters, of which only wretched traces remain. Behind the altar rise two columns with two saints carved in full relief on the front face of the capitals, « Sanctus Faustillus », « Sanctus Felix »; Faustillus is unknown. On the left the tombs of the successor of St. Paulinus,

Paulinus the Younger, d. in the year 444, and of the bishop Felix, d. in 484. On the wall against which these rest, a fresco once represented a city, encircled by walls furnished with towers, perhaps the representation of Jerusalem, which offers a strong analogy with the mosaic of Madaba. Behind the north side of the peristyle rises a wall pierced by arcades that has the appearance of an iconostasis: on the face toward the apse it is decorated with a series of paintings that range from the 7th to the 14th century. The wall is cut by two arched openings; and in the stretch between the two openings three images are seen, representing the Virgin flanked by St. Paulinus and St. Felix.

Leaving the Basilica by the south door, one finds the so-called Basilica of the Martyrs. It consists essentially of three square rooms with frescoes of the 12th-13th centuries, with two small altars in the middle room and frescoes representing St. Eusebius in the left altar and St. Mary Magdalene in the right one. In the leftmost room, the excavations of 1935 brought to light a series of earthen tombs, oriented from east to west, with the head-end of semicircular section. In one of these head-ends a painting was discovered with the scene of Jonah cast out by the monster. Of very particular importance is the narthex of this basilica, supported by two pillars, covered with ornament on all four faces; on the bracket that rests on the capital the inscription LEO TERTIVE EPISCOPUS FECIT. This bishop has been, on the basis of the Nolan writers, but without sure foundation, assigned to the 8th century. Also noteworthy are two fragments (now at the Superintendency of Monuments) that formed a triangular slab intended to serve as a ramp for an ambo; they represent part of the scene of Jonah (the tail of the monster surrounded by fish remains), and on the lower edge one reads: HOC OPVS LUPINVS EPE RENO (varit). Two other slabs, of different period and style, represent the one the calf and the lion, symbols of the evangelists Luke and Mark, the other the eagle and the lion, also symbols, with in the middle the divine lamb, which with its right paw holds a cross on a staff.

The new great Paulinian Basilica begun in 401, consecrated in 403, faces the side of the ancient Basilica in which the martyr rested. The three entrance doors to the south correspond to three entrances placed in the side of the ancient Basilica, through which the tomb of St. Felix could be glimpsed. It had three naves, with a double row of columns surmounted by arches; the apse was trichora. Of the two minor apses, the left one was destined for meditation and prayer, and there the sacred books were kept, a model of an ecclesiastical library: the right one guarded the sacred vessels.

From some fragments it is deduced that the walls were covered with polychrome marble slabs, composing geometric designs. But nothing remains of the celebrated wall paintings commissioned by Paulinus, representing a cycle of biblical scenes, and of the inscriptions that accompanied them.

This distinguished Sanctuary, one of the most celebrated places of pilgrimage in the 4th and 5th centuries, knew the worst profanations of the barbarians of the end of the ancient world, of the Lombards and the Saracens, the robberies and the neglect of the men of the 800s. Only from 1931 to 1935 were the researches and excavations resumed.

Early Christian monument of N. - In the hypogeum of the cathedral of N. a marble slab is preserved whose central panel represents a gemmed cross with the apocalyptic letters suspended from the transverse arm; from the foot of the cross spring the four symbolic rivers. A little above the transverse arm two stars with rays: at the sides of the cross, two pomegranate plants, and, around, five doves. The whole scene is framed in a border decorated with vine shoots, which starting from a vase at the foot of the cross, rejoin at its summit. At the sides of the central panel, two smaller side panels, on which two lighted candelabra are represented. The dominant idea of this precious monument is the cross, that is, Christ, triumphant. The symbolism is accentuated, if one considers that it is an altar frontal. It is assigned to the end of the 5th century, at the latest to the beginnings of the 6th.

N. and Bells. - The first to use the word « N. » to indicate a small bell would have been the fable writer Avienus (4th-5th century?). To find « N. » with the meaning of bells, one must reach Viodoardo (10th century). Of the connection of the bell with N. the first testimony is in Walfrid Strabo (9th century); but the connection of bells with St. Paulinus, in the sense that St. Paulinus would have been the inventor of bells, is of a much more recent period, of the 16th century. But if St. Paulinus does not enter into the invention of bells, nor the city of N. into their origins, Campania has a very important part in their history because the most ancient testimony of the use of bells to call the monks to prayer refers precisely to Campania, and precisely to Eugippius, the celebrated abbot of the Lucullanum, which rose at Naples on the height today called Pizzofalcone.

Domenico Mallardo

IV. LILIES OF NOLA

This is the name given to eight very tall wooden "machines," shaped like obelisks or bell towers, which are carried in procession at N. for the feast of St. Paulinus. They are built by local craftsmen under the direction of the "masters of the feast." The designs vary from year to year and reflect motifs from Renaissance, Baroque, Oriental or modern architecture, adapted to local tastes.

In 1931, the fifteenth centenary of the Saint's death, the decorations followed a single theme, the apologetic commentary on the life and works of the Saint. Each "giglio" is built with a wooden framework in the shape of a pyramid, quadrangular at the base and then triangular, and tightly joined together so as to give solidity to the whole: onto this skeleton is applied the "dressing," made up of five pieces. The giglio ends, as a rule, with a sacred statue, and on the third piece, which is the central one, there is always the figure of St. Paulinus. The procession is meant to recall the welcome that the people of Nola gave their bishop when he returned from captivity. The feast lasts three days, namely Saturday, Sunday and Monday after June 22 (the dies natalis of the Saint). On Saturday evening the gigli are "dressed" in front of the houses of the "masters of the feast": on Sunday morning they are carried to the Piazza del Duomo and blessed by the bishop amid the jubilation of the crowd, the sound of music, and the throwing of confetti and sugared almonds onto the silver bust of the Saint. The heavy machines are carried at a run by teams of about forty bearers, called "paranze," who proceed dancing, competing with one another in agility. Among the gigli stands the boat, which recalls the Saint's arrival from the sea, and there is invariably a "moor" in it, to recall that it came from the black continent. The parade takes place according to a traditional order which, in the people's interpretation, is meant to reproduce the succession in which the various tradesmen, the various guilds, moved to meet the Saint to welcome him, presumably an order of precedence among the ancient trade guilds. It is as follows: greengrocer, tavern keeper, delicatessen seller, baker, butcher, shoemaker, blacksmith and tailor. On Monday the "undressing" of the gigli takes place, and amid music, illuminations and songs the feast comes to an end. The origin of the name lies in the fact that, at first, real flowers were used, which were soon attached to poles and later to woven canes, until, out of a competitive spirit, the present "machines" about 30 meters tall were reached; but the traditional flowered pole, or, as they say, flowered torch, has not entirely disappeared: two of them are still preserved and are carried in front of the first two gigli. All this is analogous to what has happened with the "candelieri" of Nulvi and Sassari, or with the "ceri" of Gubbio. - See plate CXXI.

Paolo Toschi