Patti, Diocese of

PATTI, Diocese of. - City and diocese in Sicily, suffragan of Messina, with an area of 1,330 sq. km., a population of 218,000 inhabitants of whom 217,800 are Catholics, 40 municipalities, 71 parishes, 180 diocesan priests and 24 regular priests, 7 male religious communities and 31 female (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 313). Patrons: Sts. Bartholomew and Febronia.

The city rises 76 km. from the provincial capital, near ancient "Tyndaris," whose Greco-Roman ruins are visible on a steep cliff facing the Tyrrhenian Sea. There is no information about Patti prior to the Norman era. Count Roger founded a Benedictine abbey there, which he associated with that of Lipari; the two abbeys were erected into a single bishopric by the antipope Anacletus II in 1131, but the legitimate establishment was the work of Pope Eugene III in 1157. Boniface IX separated the two sees in 1399. The first bishop of the autonomous Patti was Francesco Hermemir; among the bishops worthy of note: Bartolomeo Sebastiani (1548), who took an active part in the Council of Trent, and Alfonso de los Cameros (1652), who founded the Seminary. Patti suffered serious damage during the War of the Vespers; in the 16th century it was set on fire in a raid by the Turks. It is not rich in monuments; the Cathedral is a 14th-century building, erected on a pre-existing Norman structure and remodeled in the 18th-19th centuries: in it is preserved the sarcophagus of Queen Adelasia, wife of Roger I and mother of Roger II; in the sacristy are kept precious Greek and Latin parchments and an interesting treasure. Noteworthy, in the municipality of Frazzanò, is the Basilian abbey of S. Filippo di Fragalà (11th century), and in Mistretta and Tusa the mother church with a medieval bell tower. Near the ruins of "Tyndaris" stands the famous sanctuary (16th century) with a miraculous Byzantine statue of the Virgin (the Black Madonna), a destination of numerous pilgrimages.

Enzo Navarra