Oristano, Diocese of

ORISTANO, Diocese of. - City and diocese in the province of Cagliari, with 38 municipalities in the province of Cagliari and 18 in that of Nuoro.

It has an area of 4,000 sq km with a population of 130,000 inhabitants, all Catholic; it has 77 parishes served by 116 diocesan priests and 26 regulars; it has a seminary, 3 male religious communities and 36 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 302).

The diocese was created in the 11th century. Boniface VIII elevated it to a metropolitan see on 24 April 1296. Bishop G. Serra, created cardinal in 1500, retained the diocese until 1510. On 15 July 1515 the diocese of S. Giusto was united to it, whose last bishop was Msgr. G. Toreglias. The archbishop holds the titles of bishop of S. Giusto and abbot of S. Michele in Thomis. The Cathedral is dedicated to the Assumption; the patron of the diocese is St. Archelao.

O. was the seat of the judges of Arborea, one of the four judicatures of Sardinia in the 11th century. O. had the curatorie of Simaghis, Milis, Barbagia, Ololai and Gileiber. With the domination of the lordship of Aragon, the influence of Tuscan art, especially that of Pisa, continued there.

The Cathedral was erected by Archbishop Torgotorio and by Mariano, judge of Arborea, in 1228. It then had a basilical form, and Roman columns and capitals taken from nearby Tarros were used in it; inscriptions documenting this construction remain. D. Scano identified two slabs with bas-reliefs of the 8th-9th century, perhaps prove-

coming from the cathedral of Tarros; in one is a haloed Daniel among the lions, in the other two lions mauling two fawns: on the reverse they bear the shield of the Judicate of Arborea and the scenes of Jesus enthroned, the Annunciation and the Coronation of the Most Holy Virgin, St. Anthony and St. John, perhaps a work by Andrea Pisano to adorn the altar or the choir; furthermore the small statues of the Madonna and of an apostle, likely supports of the two pulpits (D. Scano, Sco-parte artistiche nel duomo di O., in L'arte, 4 [1901], pp. 358-360). Of great value is the wooden crucifix known as that of Nicodemus, dated to ca. 1350, probably of Pisan origin (R. Branca, Il crocifisso di Nicodemo, Milan 1935). To the church of St. Francis a Benedictine monastery was first attached, which was succeeded in the 14th century by the Franciscans. The church was transformed in the 18th century by the architect Cunia, but it preserves earlier works of art, among them a small statue of a bishop, perhaps St. Blaise, with traces of polychromy and the inscription "Ninus magistri Andree de Pisis me fecit" (son of Andrea Pisano). Near Oristano stands the church of the Maddalena, of Pisan architecture; the roof truss is supported by corbels in which the symbols of the Evangelists are carved in polychrome decoration (D. Scano, Notizie di Sardegna, in L'arte, 6 [1903], pp. 327-28).

Enrico Josi