PALESTRINA, DIOCESE of. — In Latium, in the province of Rome, it is one of the seven suburbicarian sees occupied by a cardinal of the Order of Bishops. It covers an area of 370.06 sq km and has 59,438 inhabitants, distributed among 27 parishes, with 55 secular and 50 regular priests, 8 male and 23 female religious congregations; the minor seminary is in P., and the major seminary at Anagni, shared with those of the other dioceses of southern Latium (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 308).
P. is the Roman « Praeneste », but the present medieval city arose upon the remains of the celebrated temple of Fortuna Primigenia, begun in the 1st century B.C., on the lower slopes of the mountain, on the various terraces extending from the Cathedral to the Palazzo Barberini. These imposing remains were brought to light especially by the aerial bombardments of 1944, and restoration and arrangement work is currently being carried out by the Ministries of Public Works and of Public Instruction.
Evangelical preaching in P. began in the pre-Constantinian age. On 18 August the Hieronymian Martyrology commemorates the martyr Agapitus, whose Passio, dating from before the 9th century, says that he was born in Rome and martyred at « Praeneste », under Aurelian (270–75), by order of a king Antiocus who must have been « Flavius Antiochianus », consul in 270. There seems to be no doubt about the authenticity of the martyr Agapitus, nor about his tomb, approximately one mile from « Praeneste », over which the Basilica was built, where a bishop « Iucundus » placed a metrical inscription attributed to the 4th–5th century (cf. CIL, XIV, 3415). Lanzoni places the name of « Iucundus » second in the chronological series of the bishops of P.; first, 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 Hadrian 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 mentions the cathedral church of P., dedicated to St. Agapitus. On the hill of S. Quirico in P. there is a church with a crypt dedicated to St. Quintinus,
At approximately the 36th mile of the Via Prenestina, a cemetery with inscriptions dating from the 5th century and the second half of the 6th was discovered near Paliano. Some towns belonging Subiaco (v.), such as Bellegra (Civitella), Roiate, Affile, and Arcinazzo (Ponza), once belonged to the diocese of P. Among the bishops of P. there were also those who rose to the papacy, 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 reduced to its present form in 1706. The Episcopal Archive of P. preserves no documents earlier than 1597: it is not impossible that the ancient records disappeared with the Bonifacian destruction of the city. Among the sanctuaries of the diocese of P., the most venerated is that of Madonna del Buon Consiglio at Genazzano, in neoclassical forms and restored in 1844; its façade contains a 15th-century portal that certainly dates from the time of the alleged miraculous arrival of the image of the Madonna from Scutari (Albania). This image is the prototype of the numerous other images of Madonna del Buon Consiglio found everywhere.
At the Consistory of 21 June 1948, a suffragan bishop was assigned to the cardinal bishop of P. The diocese of P. has the vicariate of Rome as its ordinary court of appeal.