PERPIGNAN, Diocese of. - City and diocese, seat of a prefecture of the department of the Eastern Pyrenees, situated in the plain of Roussillon, on the right bank of the river Têt. The boundaries of the diocese are the same as those of the department of the Eastern Pyrenees, that is, about 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 regulars; it has a major and a minor seminary, 5 male religious communities and 19 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 315).
Where the Via Domitiana 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 ruined 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 installed themselves there; the last of them, in 1172, left his county to the king of Aragon, whence it passed to the kingdom of Majorca in 1378; it was retaken by Peter IV of Aragon and endowed with a University in 1349 (suppressed in 1793) and with a consulate of the sea in 1388. It was conquered by Louis XI in 1475, but Charles VIII restored it to Aragon in 1498. In 1597 it was retaken by Louis XII, which was recognized in the Treaty of the Pyrenees.
In 1602 Pope Clement VIII transferred to P. the episcopal see of Elne (v.), which nevertheless retained its original name and remained a suffragan of Tarragona until 1678, when it became a suffragan of Narbonne. With the bull Qui Christi Domine, of 3 Dec. 1801, Pope Pius VII extinguished the ancient diocese of Elne; but then with the bull Commissa divinitus of 6 Aug. 1817 he re-established it, fixing its seat at P. and preserving the ancient title of the diocese to designate the new one in Latin. The bishops, from 1817 onward, 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 best examples of southern Gothic with a single broad nave, of the 14th-15th century. The facade is composed of layers of stone and brick cut with great relieving arches; it is preceded by a 17th-century portico with a tower surmounted by a wrought-iron bell-cote of 1742. To the right of the facade there remains a remnant of the ancient atrium with an epitaph of 1316. The building was begun on 27 Apr. 1324 by Sancho, king of Majorca, and by Berengar, bishop of Elne, as is read in the two inscriptions inside. The building was continued in 1475 by Louis XI, completed in 1507 and consecrated in 1509. In communication with the Cathedral is the oldest (11th century) and most venerated sanctuary of P., called the "chapelle de Notre-Dame" of the Correch, which is nothing other than the apse of the primitive church of P., St-Jean-le-Vieux, consecrated in 1025; the statue of the Virgin venerated there is of Romanesque age, but restored. Near the Cathedral is the "chapelle du Christ", erected between 1535 and 1543, but recently rebuilt. The church of St. James is in part still Gothic (14th century) and in part classical (18th century); that of St. Matthew (a. 1640) constitutes an example of southern Gothic style still surviving in the 18th century. The Museum occupies the building of the ancient University; it contains architectural remains of ancient Ruscino and a collection of sculptures and paintings, as well as the Library, rich in more than 35,000 volumes, incunabula and manuscripts, among which is a 12th-century evangeliary, coming from the abbey of Arles-sur-Tech (v. ELNE).
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Enrico Josi