PARMA, Diocese of. - A city at 49 m. above sea level, crossed by the river of the same name, not far from the right bank of the Po.
It has an area of 2,100 sq km, with a population of 300,000 inhabitants, of whom 299,000 are Catholics distributed in 310 parishes served by 356 diocesan priests and 125 regulars; it has 14 male religious communities and 74 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 311).
Ruled first by the Etruscans, then by the Celts, it became a Roman colony in 183 B.C., enrolled in the Pollia tribe. A marsh and forest, it was reclaimed by M. Aemilius Scaurus in 115 B.C. and flourished through the wool industry; the Via Aemilia linked it with the other cities of the region.
Evangelization in the ancient legends is attributed to St. Apollinaris, to St. Barnabas and even to St. Lucian of Beauvais; the only plausible supposition is that it started from Milan. A bishop Urban present at the Council of Rimini of 359 is perhaps the namesake bishop of P. condemned in 372, who in 378 still held his see (Lanzoni, II, p. 807). In the first half of the 5th century, when Ravenna was constituted as a metropolitan see, P. entered its circumscription; but it was then in a period of decline. Having fallen in the struggles between Byzantines and Lombards at the beginning of the 7th century (Hist. Langob., III, 18; IV, 28) the episcopal city of Brescello (v.), P. was enlarged with its territory. But its bishop Gratiosus does not reappear until the Council of Pope Agatho in 680. Capital of a county under Charlemagne, it passed successively under the dominion of the Supponid, Bernardingian and Arduinic houses; meanwhile its bishops grew in importance in the political sphere, Wigbod was in correspondence with John VIII who charged him with negotiating with King Carloman, and he is designated as consiliarius in a document of Charles the Fat of March 880; an adherent of King Guy, whose archchaplain he was, he is then found with Emperor Lambert in July 898. Elbungo, chancellor of Kings Guy and Lambert, was present at a Council in Rome in Feb. 901 under Emperor Louis III. Aicard, dilectus fidelis of Emperor Berengar I, obtained from him confirmations for himself and for his canons in 920-21, and from King Rudolf, whose auricularius summus fidelis he was, donations in 922 and 924, from King Hugh confirmations for his church in Sept. 926. Sigifred, his successor, chancellor of King Hugh and his fidelis and consiliorum in 926, obtained in 928 concessions for Borgo S. Donnino; Adeodatus, who appeared around 946, was present on 7 Aug. 952 at the Diet of Augsburg, where Berengar II recognized Otto I, king of Germany, as lord. His successor Hubert, first chancellor of Berengar II and of Adalbert (951), was then archchancellor of Adalbert (961), then of Otto I, with whom he was in Rome in 962-63, and of Otto II. Henry was chancellor of Henry II, and present with him in Rome in Jan. 1015.
Finally on 1 June 1035 Emperor Conrad invested Bishop Hugh, his chancellor, with the city and county of P. quantum episcopatus ipsius comitatus distenditur, a concession repeated on 13 Feb. 1036; thus the bishops of P. become counts. No wonder, after all this, that P. was the stronghold of the imperialist party; as soon as the struggle for the reform and liberty of the Church took shape, P. stood in opposition. This came about through the work of Bishop Cadalus (v.), a native of Verona, elected antipope in 1061 in opposition to Alexander II under the name Honorius II. In his school was formed the Parmesan Guibert (v.) who was also antipope under the name Clement III and drew to his side Eberhard, bishop of P. But not even P. escaped the spirit of the Gregorian reform and the influence of the Pataria (v.), and Paschal II after the Council of Guastalla was able to consecrate the cathedral of P. (4 Nov. 1106) and a few days later to appoint the new bishop St. Bernard degli Uberti (v.), Vallombrosan abbot general and cardinal, formerly his legate in Lombardy.
The new spirit of liberty that animated the communal claims in the face of feudal institutions gradually undermined also the comital authority of the bishop of P. over his city, which progressively shrank to the advantage of the Commune. This did not prevent Bishop Aicard from siding with Barbarossa and his antipope Victor IV, from being made podestà of P. by him and obtaining favors from him; however, the people rose up and forced him to leave the see. The people, naturally, in order to expand their power, did not fail to oppose their bishop, but under Innocent IV the Guelph party led by the Rossi family regained strength and, overcoming the hard siege of Frederick II, destroyed the new city of Vittoria that he had set up against it (18 Feb. 1248), to the grave discomfiture of the Emperor. Following these events Giberto da Gente had a momentary lordship of the city; deposed in 1259, the Rossi, the lords of Correggio and the society of the Crusaders gained power, in 1346 the Visconti began to rule, succeeded by the Sforza. After a transient French dominion, in 1521 P. passed under the dominion of the Church, and Paul III, to remove it from foreign dominion, in 1545 formed a duchy from it together with Piacenza in favor of Pier Luigi Farnese. Moreover the same Paul III had held the episcopal see of P. since 1509 and transmitted it to his nephew Alexander who renounced it in 1535 in favor of the relative Cardinal Guido Ascanio Sforza di Santafiora; it passed in 1560 to Alessandro Sforza (cardinal in 1565), then in 1575 to Ferrante Farnese.
When the Farnese died out with Elizabeth, who became the wife of Philip V, king of Spain, the dominion of the Duchy passed to the Bourbons; until in 1806 it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy and P. became the capital of the department of the Taro. The Duchy having been reconstituted in 1815, in favor of Maria Luisa of Austria, second wife of Napoleon, it returned to the Bourbons from 1847 to 1859, when it became part of the Kingdom of Italy.
An illustrious bishop in the early nineteenth century was the Capuchin Adeodato Turchi, an illustrious preacher in more recent times the Parmesan Guido Conforti (v.).
The diocese, which in 1583 Gregory XIII had subjected to the metropolis of Bologna, erected by himself, in 1875 passed under the direct dependence of the Holy See.
The cathedral of P. stood within the ancient city and already in the 9th century it is found dedicated to the Virgin and was officiated by a Chapter of canons for which Bishop Wigbod on 29 Dec. 877 obtained donations from King Carloman; rebuilt in 923, it suffered a fire together with the city in 1058. The complete reconstruction in cut stone, with three naves with matronea, transept, crypt, dome, is due to Bishop Cadalus; a magnificent monument of Romanesque art, at the beginning of the 16th century Correggio (v.) decorated its dome with the Assumption of the Virgin, and the pendentives with images of saints; there followed in that same century on the walls and in the vaults the paintings of Girolamo Mazzola and his son Alessandro, of Michel Angelo Anselmi, Orazio Sammachini, Lattanzio Gambara, Francesco Testi and Pomponio Allegri. On the square in front stand the tower begun in 1284, the octagonal baptistery, begun in 1196, all in Veronese stone with the sculptures of Antelami (v.), the episcopal Palace recently restored to its ancient thirteenth-century appearance.
Beside the churches that arose in the medieval age, there arose in the sixteenth century the sumptuous sanctuary of S. Maria della Steccata, in the form of a Greek cross surmounted by a dome, with paintings by good painters; in the underground part it preserves the tombs of the Farnese, of the Bourbons who governed P. and of their relatives. In 1566 Ottavio Farnese began the church of the Annunciata in elliptical form which was completed only in 1692; the adjacent convent was entrusted to the Friars Minor.
For the collegiate church of Borgo S. Donnino, governed by an archpriest, which soon became exempt, v. FIDENZA.
As in the other dioceses of Emilia, monasticism had a large development in the diocese of P. In the immediate suburb arose the Benedictine monastery of S. Giovanni Evangelista, founded by Bishop Sigifredo II at the urging of Abbot Maiolo in 983; it obtained a diploma from Emperor Conrad II in 1037 and privileges from Paschal II, Innocent II, and Lucius II. It had subject to itself the monasteries of S. Bartolomeo of Pistoia and of S. Salvatore of Fonte Taone. On July 17, 1477, it became part of the Congregation of S. Giustina, and to the munificence of those abbots goes the credit for having called Correggio to fresco the cupola of their rebuilt church. The monks having been driven out in the suppression of 1810 and restored in 1816, they took part in the uprisings of 1848, were again expelled in 1849, and readmitted in 1852 through the efforts of Abbot Casaretto.
To the same Bishop Sigifredo is due the foundation in 985 of the Benedictine convent of S. Paolo; it obtained privileges from Otto IV (1210) and from Frederick II (1216). Correggio frescoed there, at the commission of the abbess, the celebrated hall. The Benedictine convent of S. Alessandro was founded in the 9th century by Cunegonda, widow of Bernard, the unfortunate king of Italy; it had subject to itself the monasteries of S. Bartolomeo in P. and of S. Tommaso near Reggio; it paid census to the Apostolic See, to which it swore an oath. Innocent VIII subjected it to the abbey of S. Giovanni Evang. on May 27, 1486.
At Brescello (v.), once the bishopric had ceased, through the work of the margraves of Tuscany arose the Benedictine monastery of S. Genesio, which paid census to the Roman Church: the monks claimed to be exempt from the jurisdiction of the bishop of P. It was given in commendam in 1409. The monastery of S. Maria at Castione de' Marchesi was founded in 1033 by Marquis Adalberto and by Adelaide his wife and stood under the patronage of the Pallavicini margraves. In 1143 it passed under the Apostolic See, to which it paid census; given in commendam, the Olivetans held it in 1487.
Lanfranco, bishop of P., founded in 1142 the abbey of S. Maria di Fontevivo, entrusting it to the Cistercian monks whom he summoned from the abbey of the Colomba. In 1518 it passed under the dependence of the monastery of S. Paolo in Rome; then into the domain of the Farnese in 1605.
P., which had as its guest for some time and as archdeacon of its cathedral Francesco Petrarch, did not lack schools that sporadically even bore the name of university, until Duke Ranuccio I in the 17th century granted them special privileges. A better university organization was given by the minister Du Tillot (v.) on the occasion of his reforms (1768). At this moment G. B. Bodoni (v.) established at P. his celebrated printing house, and in the footsteps of the monk Benedetto Bacchini the Conventual Ireneo Affò conducted his historical studies. The University, closed because of the political events of 1831, after some controversies rose again in 1854; now it is limited to the Faculties of jurisprudence and of medicine.
The State Archive possesses a part of the Farnese Papers, while the greater part passed to Naples with Charles of Bourbon. The Deputazione di Storia patria made itself deserving through good publications, thanks also to an excellent library. - See plate LXX.
Bibliography11 works
Guglielmo Bertuzzi
