PIAZZA ARMERINA (ENNA), DIOCESE OF. - In Sicily, with jurisdiction over 13 communes. It has an area of 2003 sq. km. and a population of 236,000, of whom 235,500 are Catholics; it comprises 48 parishes and 5 shrines, served by 136 diocesan priests and 40 regulars; it has 8 male and 35 female religious communities (*Ann. Pont.*, 1952, p. 318).
The origins of the diocese are recent. Considering the increase in population insufficient for the number of bishops, in 1805 Ferdinand IV, King of the Two Sicilies, requested from Pius VII the erection of a new bishopric in P. A., carved out of Catania. However, it was only on 5 July 1817, with the bull *Pervetustam locorum originem*, that Pius VII erected the new diocese. In 1819, Monsignor Girolamo Aprile Benzo began the episcopate there for the first time. Many ecclesiastics in the territory of the diocese deserve mention. Among them are recalled the Piazzi cardinals Scipione Rebba (1497–1572), one of the Fathers of the Council of Trent, and Emanuele Calascibetta (1622–73); INCETTA (v.) of the Society of Jesus, missionary in China; and Fr. Luigi Sturzo. Of the illustrious men of Enna: St. Elia (860), Basilian monk; St. Luke, abbot of Carbonara; Bl. Girolamo de Angelis of the Society of Jesus, martyr in Japan (1713); and Canon G. Alessi of the Catania Athenaeum, indefatigable scholar (1774–1837).
RELIGIOUS MONUMENTS, SHRINES, ABBEYS. - Important and artistic religious monuments for their antiquity and
