NOVARA, Diocese of. - City, capital of the province of the same name and diocese. The diocese extends from the lower Novara area to the main chain of the Alps. To the east it is bounded by Lake Maggiore and the Ticino, to the west by the Sesia and a spur of Monte Rosa, to the south by the provincial boundary plus the territory of Gravellona Lomellina, to the north by the arc of mountains that rises from the Rosa to the Gries and from the Gries descends to Lake Maggiore above Cannobio.
Its area is about 4,400 sq km. The inhabitants number 420,000, of whom 419,500 are Catholics. The ecclesiastical circumscription includes, besides the urban center, 43 rural vicariates, 13 collegiate churches, 381 parishes served by 578 secular priests and 215 regular priests, 4 seminaries, 33 male religious communities and 46 female ones.
The episcopal see, erected in the 4th century, a suffragan of the diocese of Milan, since 26 Sept. 1817, by decree of Pius VII, has formed part of the ecclesiastical province of Vercelli.
I. HISTORY
Ancient Novaria, a city of the XI Augustan region (Transpadana), had a pre-Roman origin, perhaps more Gaulish than Ligurian. It was crossed by the great road indicated in the itineraries of the late Empire, which joined Milan to Vercelli. Destroyed by Maximus in his struggle with Valentinian II, it was rebuilt by Theodosius the Great at the request of Bishop Gaudentius. It suffered serious damage also in the wars between Theodoric and Odoacer, so much so that Bishop Honoratus, according to Ennodius, built a castle there for defense. Under the Carolingians it was the seat of a count, but power gradually passed from the counts to the bishops, confirmed by Otto I (969) in the person of Bishop Aupaldus. From the time of Henry III, N. was a Commune, governed by two consuls and a major consul. Frequently at war with Vercelli and with Milan, it allied with Frederick Barbarossa against the latter city, but in 1168 it was forced to enter the Lombard League. After the Peace of Constance, it struggled with the counts of Biandrate, with Vercelli and with its bishops, who did not wish to be deprived of their sovereign rights, in which they had again been confirmed by Frederick Barbarossa. Following the expulsion of the bishop in 1200, Innocent III threatened to suppress the diocese. Then, when Martino della Torre became lord of Milan, N. paid him homage, as it did to the Visconti, and from that time it formed part of the Duchy of Milan with rare intervals: in 1536-38 it belonged to the Monferrato; in 1556-1602 to the Farnese of Parma, and with the Treaty of Vienna of 1738 it passed to the House of Savoy.
Owing to its position N. was the theater of important battles. In Apr. 1500 Ludovico il Moro, duke of Milan, was preparing to besiege Trivulzio there, appointed governor by the king of France; but, abandoned by his Swiss troops, he was taken prisoner. On 6 June 1513 the Swiss in the pay of the king of Spain drove out the French: on 10 Apr. 1812 the troops that had rebelled against King Charles Felix were dispersed there: on 23 March 1849 Radetzky inflicted on the Piedmontese a defeat that forced King Charles Albert to abdicate.
II. MONUMENTS
Of the ancient monuments with which the city was once rich, little remains at present. Among them is to be remembered the Baptistery, with an octagonal plan, probably rebuilt in the 10th century on a 5th-century plan.
The old Romanesque Cathedral, consecrated in 1132 by Innocent II, already previously restored, enlarged and patched up in such a way as to recall very little of its primitive lines, was demolished in 1865 to make room for the Antonellian Temple, opened to the public and consecrated by Bishop Msgr. Gentile on 2 October 1869. The building strikes one by the grandiose porticoes that rise at its side and in front, by the various superimposed colonnades, by the vastness of its proportions and the beauty of its classical forms. The interior is basilical in shape with three naves, divided by Corinthian columns 19 m. high. It contains nine altars: the high altar and eight side altars, in which are admired canvases and altarpieces from the old Cathedral, among which the Marriage of St. Catherine by G. Ferrari, Our Lord on the Cross with St. Gaudentius, St. Benedict, the Magdalene by Bernardino Lanino, the fresco of the Madonna delle Grazie by Bernardino Campi. Other precious remains of the ancient Basilica are the mosaic of the presbytery floor, believed to be of the 9th century, the oratory of St. Syrus with 12th-century frescoes, and the frescoes by Lanino transferred onto the walls of the lower sacristy. The capitular Library must be counted, for its manuscripts, among the richest in Piedmont: it possesses 144 codices, a collection of sacred canons by the grammarian Stephen, a guide to Rome of 1399 and precious incunabula.
The basilica of St. Gaudentius, rebuilt at intervals between 1577 and 1659 on a design by Pellegrini, is flanked by the beautiful bell tower, erected in 1753-86 by Benedetto Alfieri; and surmounted by the very bold dome of Antonelli, executed between 1844-88, which gives a characteristic element to the appearance of the city. In the interior, on the Baroque altars, are noted a polyptych by G. Ferrari of 1514, the Deposition from the Cross by Moncalvo, frescoes by Morazzone and by Stefano Legnani. Splendid and very rich in marbles and valuable works is the "scurolo" begun in 1674, where, in an octagonal urn of worked silver and Venetian crystal, rests St. Gaudentius (v.) patron of the city and of the diocese.
Among the other churches of N. are to be remembered that of Ognissanti, with Romanesque remains, the 15th-century churches of St. Martin and of St. Nazarius, the latter restored in 1929-32 and containing 15th-century frescoes, the churches of Baroque architecture, St. Mark (1607) with frescoes by Moncalvo and a canvas (Martyrdom of St. Mark) by Crespi, and St. Peter at the Rosary with a Madonna by Procaccini and frescoes by Fiammenghini.
III. SANCTUARIES
The Sacro Monte of Varallo is the most distinguished of the Novara sanctuaries; founded in 1491 by the Milanese nobleman Bl. Bernardino Caimo of the Friars Minor Observant. The complex of architectural buildings, due to Pellegrino Tibaldi and Galeazzo Alessi, numbers 46 chapels, a basilica, a secondary church, four grandiose buildings (one used as an inn and three as a hospice for pilgrims) and a cloister for the Oblate Fathers entrusted with spiritual care. In the chapels the most important events of the life of Jesus Christ are reproduced in statues and in paintings. The best artists of the time worked there: it is enough to recall Master Fra Francesco, G. Ferrari, F. Stella, G. Wespin, and the Valsesians G. D'Enrico, G. Ferro, B. Ravelli, G. Bargnola, D. Bussola, G. Volpini, C. Tandardini, L. Marchesi, A. D'Enrico, Gianoli, Orgiazzi, Avondo, Borsetti, Gilardi, Reffo, etc.
The sanctuary of the Most Holy Crucifix of Boca owes its origin to a painting frescoed above a rough little pillar and depicting a Crucifix flanked by an angel who collects in a chalice the blood issuing from the side, held in veneration from the middle of the 17th century. The traveler G. B. Curioni of Gallarate, freed in those parts from an ambush, attributed his salvation to the invocation of the Crucifix and made the first conspicuous offering that gave rise to the Sanctuary. The grandiose present temple is by the architect A. Antonelli.
The church of the Most Holy Pietà of Cannobio is a national monument and was designed by order of St. Charles Borromeo, by Pellegrino Pellegrini. The facade is of red granite from Baveno; the interior is very rich in gold and stucco with paintings by good authors of the 17th century. In place of the tabernacle one sees, in the position where it was in 1522, the miraculous little picture depicting the Pietà. St. Charles Borromeo enriched this Sanctuary with many privileges, visited it several times and on 31 Oct. 1584 celebrated there his penultimate Mass.
The sanctuary of the Madonna del Sangue at Re, in Val Vigezzo, also had its origin in a miraculous event, namely from the blood that flowed from the forehead of the Madonna, painted with the Child in her arms on the facade of the church of S. Maurizio, following a stone thrown at her forehead on the evening of 29 Apr. 1500 by a certain Giovanni Zuccone, who had come out angry from an inn because he had lost at gambling. The event was repeated on the night of 1 May before a great number of people who were praying by the light of numerous lit candles, and the blood began to flow in such abundance that it ran down to the ground and various little cloths were soaked with it, which are jealously preserved in the sanctuary, as appears from the testimonies written by the podestàs of the valley Daniele De Crispi and the noble Angelo Romano. Before the miraculous image a wooden altar was immediately built: then the old church of S. Maurizio was lengthened so that the portico came to be at the center of the new construction (1595); but with the growth of the fame of the Sanctuary and of the frequency of Italian and Swiss pilgrimages, the need was felt to erect a new temple, whose works are in progress. The design, Gothic style, is by the architect Edoardo Collamarini.
The sanctuary of the Sacro Monte d'Orta was conceived by the community of the town to commemorate the principal events of the life of St. Francis of Assisi; but it began in 1591 when the abbot Amico Canobio set his hand to the erection of what later became the 20th chapel. The bishop of Novara, the venerable Bascapé, gave impetus to the works of the Sacro Monte, himself also ordering a chapel at his own expense; other benefactors imitated his example. In 1630 ten chapels were finished, in 1770 the twentieth was also inaugurated. They rise in the most varied architectural forms of the 16th and 17th centuries among the pine groves of the enchanting mount that dominates the lake of the same name from three sides: they enclose a good number of terracotta statues and have walls frescoed by various painters, among whom are remembered G. C. Procaccini, Cantalupi, Nuvolone, Crespi, the Fiammenghini, il Morazzone.
The Madonna del Boden: on the mount that overlooks the town of Ornavasso there was venerated at the beginning of the 16th century an image of the Virgin painted on the wall of a little chapel, later transformed into a small church, enlarged in 1761; in 1825 the side aisles were built. Now the Sanctuary is joined to the village by a good carriage road, and is the destination of numerous pilgrims.
Minor sanctuaries. - The diocese is rich in other sanctuaries dedicated for the most part to the Madonna. There are remembered: the Madonna del Varallino at Galliate, the Madonna di S. Cassiano at Cameri, the Madonna di Loreto at Oleggio in the lower Novara area; the Madonna del Sasso at Boletto and the Madonna della Bocciola at Vaciago on Lake Orta; the Madonna delle Grazie at Montrigone near Borgosesia and the Madonna del Callone at Campertogno in Valsesia; S. Fermo at Crusinallo, the Madonna della Neve at Bannio, the Madonna della Vita at Mozzio in the Ossola; S. Carlo, on the mount of the same name, at Arona and the Madonna delle Grazie at Suna on Lake Maggiore.
IV. THE SAINTS
The first apostle of N. was St. Lawrence, priest and martyr, named in the diptychs of the Cathedral after St. Gaudentius and St. Agabius (vistorum magister et doctor egregius, sed non episcopus), who probably came from Vercelli, who preached and baptized outside the city and was killed by the pagans together with some children who followed him. - The first bishop of N. was St. Gaudentius (v.), who was succeeded by St. Agabius (d. in 438?), who continued his work with great zeal and is buried in the Cathedral beneath the altar dedicated to him. Sts. Julius and Julian, apostles of the upper Novara region and of Cusio, are said to have been two brothers, one a priest, the other a deacon, who are said to have destroyed many altars and profane temples and erected many churches, of which the 99th was the one erected at Gozzano, in honor of St. Lawrence, by Julian, who was buried there, and the 100th the one erected on the island of Lake Orta by Julius, who was buried there together with the bodies of St. Elias, bishop of Sion, St. Audentius, the martyr Demetrius, St. Philibert abbot, St. Adalgisus (v.), 32nd bishop of N. The blessed Panacea, a girl of 15, killed by her stepmother (1 May 1383) is celebrated at Ghemme; the blessed Pacificus of Cerano, of the Observant Friars Minor (d. at Sassari in 1482), at Cerano. Mention should also be made of the blessed Catherine of Pallanza (1437-38) who led a hermit's life on the Sacro Monte at Varese; whose body rests beside that of the blessed Juliana in the little temple adjoining the Basilica.
V. THE BISHOPS
The diocese of N. is the only one among all those of Piedmont, affirms Fr. Savio, that possesses the precise list of its bishops, recorded in the precious ivory diptychs of the Cathedral and of the basilica of St. Gaudentius. The diptych of the Cathedral, 33 cm. high and 27 cm. wide, was written by a certain Airaldus, subdeacon, and lists the bishops of Novara from St. Gaudentius to Boniface (1172). That of St. Gaudentius measures 32 cm. in height and 22 cm. in width and contains the list of the bishops of Novara down to Guglielmo Amidano (1343).
From St. Gaudentius to the present day there have been 117 bishops who have governed the diocese of N.: three of them, Gaudentius, Agabius, Adalgisus, wear the halo of saints; two, Pietro Filargo (Alexander V) and Benedetto Odescalchi (Innocent XI), rose to the splendors of the Roman pontificate, and fourteen were invested with the cardinalitial title.
VI. THE SCHOLARS
Pietro Lombardo (v.), the cardinals Ardicio I (d. 1434) and Ardicio II (d. 1483); the blessed
Fr. Tornielli of the Reformed Minors, eminent preacher (d. 1589), St. Charles Borromeo (v.), the venerable C. Bascapé (v.); the venerable Fr. Quagliotti, preacher (d. 1617), the venerable L. Giacobini, popularly called the "holy parish priest" of Cressa and of Varallo Sesia (d. 1732); the canon P. Scavini (v.), eminent moralist.