POLICASTRO, DIOCESI di. – City and diocese in the province of Salerno; it has an area of 1,200 sq km and a population of 70,000 inhabitants, all Catholics, distributed among 41 parishes served by 70 diocesan priests and 15 religious priests; it has a seminary, 4 male and 23 female religious communities (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 321). It is suffragan to Salerno; the Cathedral is dedicated to the B.M.V. ASSENZA.
History. – It is believed that P. inherited its episcopal see from ancient Bussento (Buxentum), destroyed by invasions and Saracen raids; only some prefer to identify ancient Buxentum with Pisciotta in the Valle di Novi. The first known prelate of Buxentum is Rustico, present at the Roman Council of 501; then an N., on whose death (592) Gregory the Great wrote to Felice, bishop of Acropoli, instructing him to visit Bussento together with Velia and Blanda, in order to restore some order there,
re-establish worship and remedy the vacancies among the clergy with new ordinations (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 1195). The concern evident in the letter indicates a serious situation, to which incursions and raids of every kind, so frequent in that period, may perhaps not have been unrelated. The second known bishop is Sabbazio, who signed himself « episcopus buxentinus » in 649 at the Lateran Council. After this prelate, the name of Buxentum disappears from history.
With the Byzantine conquest, the Greek rite must have been introduced among the populations of this region, as attested by the Greek communities of Rivello and the collegiate churches of S. Maria del Poggio and S. Nicolò, belonging to the diocese. The birth and development of P. must have taken place after the year 1000. From its origin, it was a stronghold of the Latin rite and sought by every means to supplant the other. The appointment of Pietro Pappacarboni to the bishopric of P. in 1079 was intended simultaneously as a continuation and restoration of the dignity of Bussento, and marks the beginning of the succession of the city’s prelates. The life and virtues of this first bishop, a Salernitan patrician who in the same year abandoned the see to retire to his cenobium at Cava, were so extraordinary that they raised him to the honours of the altars. His successor, Arnaldo, known from a document of 1110, left no other record of himself, as did all the other prelates, until that N., archpriest of Saponaria de' Marsi at the time of his election. Appointed by the Chapter and confirmed in 1211 by Pope Innocent III, he replaced Giacomo, physician to Frederick II, following the papal annulment of the latter’s appointment. Another disputed election occurred upon the death of Guglielmo de Licio, elected in 1222, when the archpriest chosen by the Chapter was replaced by N., imposed by Gregory IX in 1237. With Giovanni Castellomata of Salerno begins the continuous succession of bishops without further disputes, since he himself was confirmed in 1254 by Innocent IV. Among his successors are remembered: Pagano, mentioned in two Angevin documents of 1294; Gabriele Attilio, an accomplished Latinist, poet and tutor to King Ferdinando of Naples (1471); Girolamo Almena (1485), a Dominican of Naples, appointed ambassador of the Kingdom to Alessandro VI; Filippo Spinelli (1603–1605), a Neapolitan patrician, formerly nuncio in Vienna to the Emperor Rodolfo II, created cardinal while he was still bishop of P.; Filippo Giacobbi of Messina (1652), restorer of the episcopal residence; and Vincenzo de Sylva, a Dominican (1671), who vigorously defended the possessions of Torre Orsaia against Fabrizio Carafa and even placed him under interdict, an act revoked by his successor Tommaso de Rosa (1679), a distinguished restorer of the Cathedral.
Monuments. – The only noteworthy one is the Cathedral, built in 1177 but largely rebuilt at the end of the 17th century, which presents no particular interest. In the diocese, mention should be made of the two ancient churches of S. Maria Greca and S. Maria dei Martiri at Roccagloriosa and the parish church of upper Maratea with the chapel of S. Biagio, containing relics of the saint of that name and a ciborium dated 1518.