DIOCESE OF SOVANA-PITIGLIANO. - In the province of Grosseto, it has an area of 2,000 sq km and a population of 60,000 inhabitants, of whom 59,000 are Catholics, distributed in 51 parishes served by 69 diocesan priests and 12 regulars; it has a seminary, 4 male religious communities and 17 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 407).
The diocese of S.-P., a suffragan of Siena, has its minor seminary in P.; for the philosophical and theological course it relies on the regional major seminary of S. Maria della Quercia (Viterbo); it has 9 municipalities, of which 8 are in the province of Grosseto: Pitigliano, Castell'Azzara, Manciano, Portercole, Roccalbegna, Samprugnano, Scansano; one is in the province of Siena: Piancastagnaio.
S. (a hamlet of the municipality of Sorano), in the province of Grosseto, at 289 m above sea level: pop. 729 (census of 4 Dec. 1951), a name of Etruscan origin, the Roman Snana, was an important Etruscan center in the 7th-6th centuries B.C.; it then underwent a period of decline, from which it recovered in the 3rd century B.C., having passed, as a municipium, under the dominion of Rome. It was besieged and destroyed by the Lombards; but the fact that already, in the 7th century, it had its own bishops suggests that the city had risen from its ruins. An era of splendor followed with the Aldobrandeschi, a family almost certainly of Lombard origin, which claimed descent from King Liutprand (736-44) and which already around the year 1000 had extensive possessions in the region of the Amiata and of S. Fiora. At the end of the 13th century it passed, through marriage by female descent, to the Orsini, who retained possession of it until 1410, definitively lost in 1431 after a brief period of Sienese dominion. Having returned under Siena, it came, in the wake of the vicissitudes of Tuscany, under the grand dukes, who sought to arrest its decline, caused especially by malaria. S. was called the "city of Jeremiah," precisely because of the state of abandonment and ruin, which in 1672 determined the transfer of the bishop's residence to P. Interesting and characteristic is the configuration of the dioceses found in the non-homogeneous territory of the ancient possessions of the Aldobrandeschi, in which around the year 1000 the bishops of Castro (the diocese later passed to Acquapendente), of Massa Marittima, Volterra, Siena, Tuscania, Chiusi, and of the more recent ones of Grosseto, Montefiascone, Corneto (Tarquinia), Montalcino, Pienza, Città della Pieve had jurisdiction.
The first bishop of S., according to Ughelli, is Tadino: but according to others, Maurizio, who in 680 subscribed to the sixth ecumenical council, Constantinople III.
S. preserves few Etruscan remains: notable is a necropolis that presents a variety of tombs, almost all of the chamber type. The Cathedral (Sts. Peter and Paul) underwent restorations in the 11th, 12th, and 14th centuries, yet retaining its Romanesque structure; the facade is covered by the canonica; the interior has three naves, grand but bare: there is preserved the tomb of St. Mamilian, seventh bishop of Palermo, exiled at the time of the invasion of the Vandals of Genseric in 445, who died at S. in 460; an ancient church, of which the ruins remain, originally built over the remains of a Roman temple, was also dedicated to the Saint. The patrons of S. are Sts. Mamilian and Gregory VII (Liutprand, son of Bonizo), b. near S.
P., a municipality in the province of Grosseto, from which it is 85 km distant, at 919 m above sea level: present population 5,760, legal 5,565 (census of 4 Nov. 1951); it rises in a very picturesque position, on the edge of the cliffs. Very scanty is the information about Etruscan and Roman P., on whose ruins the present-day city rises, which, with its territory, saved from the barbarian incursions, later belonged to the Aldobrandeschi, succeeded by the Orsini, who, having lost S., styled themselves counts of P. Under them P. became the most important center and the capital of the Maremma county. In the 16th century the rapid decline of this family began; and P., after various lordships and vicissitudes, passed in 1604 definitively under the grand dukes of Tuscany. As early as the 15th century a numerous colony of Jews settled in P., who had their own synagogue there; later many of them moved to Florence and Livorno. In 1509, the ancient church of S. Maria was erected into a collegiate church, rebuilt from the foundations by Count Niccolò III; Gregory XVI, then, acceding to the requests of Grand Duke Leopold II, declaring P. a city, by bull of 11 Jan. 1844, raised the collegiate church to cathedral of S., transferring its Chapter there. The last bishop of S., Barzellotti (70th of the series), was the first to style himself bishop of S. and P.
Among the monuments of P. the Palazzo degli Orsini, of the 14th century, with a remodeling of the 15th century, excels; damaged in the revolt of the people against the Orsini in Jan. 1561. The Cathedral (today Sts. Peter and Paul) presents the Baroque facade, with on the left side a characteristic bell tower with three stories diminishing toward the top: interior renovated in the 16th century.
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Carlo Carletti