NUSCO, DIOCESE of. – City and diocese in the province of Avellino. It comprises 8 municipalities, the most important of which are: Bagnoli Irpino, Castelvetero di Calore, and Montella. It has an area of 31,143 sq. km, with a population of 38,810 inhabitants, of whom 38,700 are Catholics. It has 19 parishes served by 49 diocesan priests and 4 religious priests; it has a seminary, one male religious community, and 8 female communities (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 294).
The diocese was established in the 11th century; whether around 1048 or at the end of the century cannot be ascertained, as a suffragan of Salerno. The first bishop was St. Amato (997–1093), a native of N., a highly learned and pious man of patrician family, to whom the credit for establishing the episcopal see, with the support of the Normans, seems in any case to be due. Among his most important works, mention should be made of the restoration of various churches, the construction of two new ones dedicated to St. Lorenzo and Our Lady of Fontignano, and the rebuilding of the Cathedral. Moreover, he was the one who united in a single center the inhabitants scattered among the nearby villages. Among the other bishops, mention may be made of: Ruggero II (1198), who embellished the Cathedral and provided a more honorable burial for the city’s patron saint; Iannuccio Pascasio, a Franciscan, to whom Pius II (1461) assigned the abbey of Fontignano; P. P. Parisio (1538), later a cardinal; and F. Acudio (1639–41), a Greek scholar versed in the classical languages.
In 1818, Pius VII, by the apostolic letter De utiliori, suppressed the diocese of Monte Marano, uniting it with N.
MONUMENTS. — Of the Cathedral dedicated to s. Amato, little or nothing precise is known. It is certain that, after the various
restorations necessitated by the damage suffered in earthquakes, it has lost all interest. The only noteworthy feature, in the crypt, is a small Byzantine statue of the Virgin of Succor.