Palestrina, Diocese of

PALESTRINA, Diocese of. - In Latium, in the province of Rome, it is one of the seven suburbicarian sees held by a cardinal of the Order of Bishops. It measures an area of 370.06 sq km with 59,438 inhabitants, divided into 27 parishes, with 55 secular priests and 50 regulars, 8 male religious congregations and 23 female; the minor seminary is in P. and the major one in Anagni, shared with that of the other dioceses of lower Latium (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 308).

P. is the "Praeneste" of the Romans, but the present medieval city arose on the remains of the famous temple of Fortuna Primigenia, begun in the 1st century B.C., at the foot of the mountain, on the various terraces that run from the Cathedral to the Palazzo Barberini. These grandiose remains were brought to light especially by the aerial bombardments of 1944, and work on their arrangement is in progress by the Ministries of Public Works and of Public Education.

The preaching of the Gospel at P. began in the pre-Constantinian age. The Hieronymian Martyrology, on 18 Aug., commemorates the martyr Agapitus, whose Passio, earlier than the 9th century, would say he was born in Rome and martyred at "Praeneste," under Aurelian (270-75), by order of a king Antiochus who must be "Flavius Antiochianus," consul in 270. There seems to be no doubt about the authenticity of the martyr Agapitus as well as about his tomb, about a mile from "Praeneste," over which arose the Basilica where a bishop "Iucundus" placed a metrical inscription attributed to the 4th-5th century (cf. CIL, XIV, 3415). Lanzoni places the name of "Iucundus" in second place in the chronological series of the bishops of P.; in first place, with the date 314, he places "Secundus," whom F. Cristofori and P. Gams call St. Secondinus. In the 8th century the anonymous author of the Life of Adrian I in the Liber Pontificalis mentions a basilica of St. Secondinus at P. "ubi eius corpus quiescit." Likewise the anonymous author of the Life of Leo III makes mention of the cathedral church of P., dedicated to St. Agapitus. On the hill of St. Quiricus of P. there exists a church with a crypt, dedicated to St. Quintinus, which martyr, however, Lanzoni notes, is not known from any other record. It could be a question of the Quintinus registered in some codices of the Hieronymian Martyrology on 25 and 26 Aug.

At about the 36th mile of the Via Prenestina, near Paliano, a cemetery was discovered with inscriptions of the 5th century and of the second half of the 6th. Some towns of the present abbey of Subiaco (v.), such as Bellegra (Civitella), Roiate, Affile, Arcinazzo (Ponza), once belonged to the diocese of P. Among the bishops of P. there were also those who ascended to the pontificate, such as Clement III, Gregory XI, Nicholas IV, Paul III, Julius III and Leo XI. In 1298, Boniface VIII, at the conclusion of the struggle with the Colonna, destroyed the city of P., sparing only the Cathedral, which Cardinal L. Portocarrero in 1706 reduced to its present form. The episcopal Archive of P. preserves no documents earlier than 1597: it is not impossible that the ancient papers disappeared with the Bonifacian destruction of the city. Among the sanctuaries of the diocese of P., greatly venerated is that of the Madonna del Buon Consiglio at Genazzano, of neoclassical forms, restored in 1844, in whose facade is a 15th-century portal, which certainly dates back to the time of the supposed miraculous arrival of the image of the Madonna from Scutari (Albania). This image is the prototype of the numerous other images of the Madonna del Buon Consiglio, scattered everywhere.

In the Consistory of 21 June 1948 the cardinal bishop of P. was given a suffragan bishop. The diocese of P. has the vicariate of Rome as its ordinary court of appeal.

Benedetto Pesci