PERPIGNANO, DIOCESI di. – City and diocese, seat of the prefecture of the department of the Eastern Pyrenees, situated in the plain of Roussillon, on the right bank of the Têt River. The boundaries of the diocese are the same as those of the department of the Eastern Pyrenees, namely approximately 4,143 sq. km., with a population of 228,776 inhabitants, of whom 200,000 are Catholics. It is divided into 4 archpriesthoods and 22 deaneries. It has 223 parishes served by 176 diocesan priests and 25 religious priests; it has a major and a minor seminary, 5 male and 19 female religious communities (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 315).
Where the Via Domiziana met the Têt there had once been a small Gallic settlement; the Romans erected there a small city called Ruscino, later Rouisseillo (today Castel Roussillon), which was devastated during the great invasions. The first mention of the « Villa Perpiniani » or « Papiniani » does not appear before the 10th century, when the counts of Roussillon settled there. The last of these, in 1172, left his county to the king of Aragon, whence it passed to the kingdom of Majorca in 1378; it was reconquered by Pietro IV d'Aragona and endowed with a university in 1349 (suppressed in 1793) and with a consulate of the sea in 1388. It was conquered by Luigi XI in 1475, but Carlo VIII returned it to Aragon in 1498. In 1597 it was reconquered by Luigi XII, a fact recognized in the Treaty of the Pyrenees.
In 1602 Pope Clement VIII transferred to P. Elne (v.) which, however, retained its original designation and remained a suffragan of Tarragona until 1678, when it became a suffragan of Narbonne. With the bull Qui Christi Domine, of 3 December 1801, Pope Pius VII suppressed the ancient diocese of Elne; but then, with the bull Commissa divinitus of 6 August 1817, he restored it, establishing its see at P. and retaining the ancient title of the diocese to designate the new one in Latin. From 1817 onward, the bishops resided both at Elne and at P. The patrons of the diocese are St John the Baptist, St Eulalia, and St Julia.
The cathedral of St John the Baptist offers one of the finest examples of southern Gothic, with a single broad nave, dating from the 14th–15th centuries. The façade is composed of layers of cut stone and brick, with large relieving arches; it is preceded by a 17th-century portico with a tower surmounted by a wrought-iron belfry from 1742. To the right of the façade there remains a section of the ancient atrium, with an epitaph from 1316. The building was begun on 27 April 1324 by Sancio, king of Majorca, and Berengario, bishop of Elne, as is recorded in the two inscriptions inside. Construction was continued in 1475 by Luigi XI, completed in 1507, and consecrated in 1509. Connected with the cathedral is the oldest (11th century) and most venerated sanctuary of P., called the « chapelle de Notre-Dame » du Correch, which is nothing other than the apse of the primitive church of P., St-Jean-le-Vieux, consecrated in 1025; the venerated statue of the Virgin is Romanesque in date, but has been restored. Near the cathedral is the « chapelle du Christ », erected between 1535 and 1543 but recently rebuilt. The church of St James is partly still Gothic (14th century) and partly classical (18th century); that of St Matthew (1640) constitutes an example of southern Gothic style still surviving in the 18th century. The Museum occupies the building of the former university; it contains architectural remains from ancient Ruscino and a collection of sculptures and paintings, as well as the Library, rich in more than 35,000 volumes, incunabula, and manuscripts, including a 12th-century evangeliary from the abbey of Arles-sur-Tech (v. ELNE).