PORTO and SANTA RUFINA, DIOCESE OF
In Lazio, in the province of Rome, it is one of the seven suburbicarian sees held by a cardinal of the order of bishops. It covers an area of 2000 sq km, extending northwest of the diocese of Rome, between the national roads Flaminia (as far as Castelnuovo di Porto), Cassia (as far as La Storta), and Aurelia (as far as S. Marinella). The population of 48,937 inhabitants is divided into 24 parishes, with 28 secular priests and 4 regular priests, 2 male and 19 female congregations. It has the episcopal curia in Rome and its ordinary appellate tribunal at the vicariate of Rome (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 325).
Situated at the mouth of the Tiber on the right bank, in ancient times it was the port of Ostia and formed a single entity with it; later it became the port of Rome and a separate city.
It is certain that Christianity penetrated to P. in the pre-Constantinian age. The name of P. appears in the Depositio martyrum of the Chronographer of 354, where on 5 September it reads: “Acconti, in Porto, et Nonni et Herculani et Taurini”; it recurs several times in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum. In the cloister of S. Paolo, in the sarcophagus of Nevio Zarista and Costanza, the martyrs Taurinus and Herculanus of Porto are named. The martyr Cantius had a church in P., recorded in a document of the 10th century; Taurinus and Herculanus appear together with the title of martyrs in an inscription on an ancient sarcophagus of P.; Nonnus must be the same as the martyr Hippolytus, who in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum appears on 20 August and 22 of the same month, and in the Bern codex is clearly identified with Nonnus: “Et in Portu Urbis Romae Ippoliti qui dicitur Nonnus.” The ancient Calendar of P. contained several anniversaries, but the most certain martyrs would be Eutropius, Zosima, Bonosa, Cantius, Herculanus, Taurinus, and Aristo. The inscriptions and other Christian antiquities of P. have not yet shed much light on the first three centuries. G. B. De Rossi thought that the diocese of P. Ostia (v.) and it is certainly probable that a Christian community formed first at the port than in the city of Ostia. In 398 the Roman nobleman Pammachius founded in P. a hospital for foreigners arriving by sea, for the poor and for the sick. This is the oldest hospital known.
1813 PORTO E SANTA RUFINA - PORTO VECCHIO 1814
Since the diptychs are lacking, the Catalogue of Bishops of P. remains incomplete and uncertain. The church erected between Ostia and P. in honor of St. Hippolytus, later destroyed by the Vandals, it seems, in 455, does not authorize placing the famous ecclesiastical writer among the bishops of P., opening the series, but with certainty it only attests the liturgical cult due to him, which, moreover, as has been said, is attested by the Depositio martyrum. The first certainly known bishop of P. is Gregory in 314.
In the Liber Pontificalis, in addition to the cathedral church of S. Hippolytus (Life of Leo III), a church of S. Nympha and another of S. Mary (Life of Leo IV) are recorded; in the time of Adrian I there existed in P. a monastery dedicated to S. Lawrence and an inscription (CIL, XIV, no. 1937) attests the construction carried out by Bishop Donatus of a basilica in honor of the martyrs Eutropius, Bonosa, and Zosima. In the Middle Ages the bishops of P., by the gracious concession of the Roman pontiffs, extended their jurisdiction also to Trastevere in Rome, including the Tiber Island, and in the church of S. Giovanni Calibita they established their episcopal residence. In 1120, Callistus II, because of changed conditions which had depopulated the nearby diocese of S. Rufina, united the diocese of P. with it, and the bishop was thenceforth called bishop of P. and S. Rufina. It is not known when the archive of the united diocese disappeared, from which Gregory IX in 1236 had privileges of his dioceses extracted and inserted into his Registers. A parchment codex (2ª, 292), in the Library of the University of Munich, preserves an inventory of books of the diocese of P. from the 11th century.
Twelve miles from Rome, on the Aurelia, was an imperial villa called Lorium, between La Bottaccia and Castel di Guido. In its territory were three martyrs' shrines: the first of SS. Rufina and Secunda, the second of SS. Marius, Martha, Audifax, and Abacuch, and the third of S. Basilides. Near the shrine of SS. Rufina and Secunda the bishops of Lorium resided, later called bishops of S. Rufina (v. LORIUM).
In addition to the aforementioned shrines, the Liber Pontificalis (Life of Leo IV) also records in S. Rufina another church dedicated to SS. Cosmas and Damian. In the 11th century the agreement of the Roman pontiffs extended the jurisdiction of the bishops of S. Rufina over churches in Rome: S. Martina in the Roman Forum and SS. Adalbert and Paulinus on the Tiber Island (today S. Bartolomeo), over monasteries within the Leonine City; over the oratory of SS. Rufina and Secunda in the Lateran Baptistery. In S. Bartolomeo on the Island, following the example of the bishops of P. for S. Giovanni Calibita, they established their episcopal residence. Moreover, the bishop of S. Rufina had the privilege of consecrating the emperor and of performing all other functions in St. Peter's when the Pope was impeded. Benedict IX had established that the bishop of S. Rufina should also be librarian of the Holy Roman Church, in which office the cardinals Umberto and Mainardo are to be remembered. But almost immediately the Benedictine privilege declined. After the union of S. Rufina with P., the cardinal bishop combined in himself those prerogatives which today belong to the cardinal vicar and the cardinal archpriest of St. Peter's. These prerogatives ceased in the 14th century with the residence that the popes established in the Vatican.
In the present territory of P. and S. Rufina there existed the ancient see of Caere (v. CERVETERI).
Among the bishops of P. and S. Rufina stand out the figures of two Franciscan cardinals, Matthew of Aquasparta and John Minio, respectively in 1291 and 1302. There were those who claimed the Roman pontificate, such as John XXII, Alexander VI, Paul III, Paul IV, Alexander VIII, and Benedict XIII.
On 20 December 1825, Leo XII with the bull De dominici gregis salute erected the collegiate church of S. Francis in Civitavecchia into a cathedral and, with some parishes of the diocese of Viterbo, united it to P. and S. Rufina; on 3 July 1826 he appointed a suffragan bishop for the same. At that time the cardinal bishop, in addition to the title of P. and S. Rufina, added that of Civitavecchia. But in 1854 TARQUINI, CAMILLO (v.). In 1950 Cardinal Bishop Eugène Tisserant completed the church at La Storta, begun in 1922, and consecrated it as the cathedral church of the diocese of P. and S. Rufina. — See pl. CXXIII.
ARCHAEOLOGY. - In addition to the remains of Trajan’s ancient port with its entire complex of buildings, in 1840 Melchiorri discovered various tombs with the remains of constructions along the entire canal (Fossa Traiana), already seen and commented upon by Pope Pius II in 1461 (Comment., II, 143). Within the present Torlonia estate, incorporated into the ruins of the ancient city, excavations conducted in 1864–66 brought to light a Christian basilica 25 meters long, including a baptistery built into the structure and featuring two semicircular apses one above the other, separated by a narrow corridor; it is architecturally similar to the church of S. Stefano on the Via Latina. Adjoining the basilica was a large building containing numerous small rooms and a spacious colonnaded atrium, identified by Lanciani and De Rossi as the xenodochium founded in 398 by Pammachius, a friend of St. Jerome and mentioned by him several times (Epist. LXVI, 11; PL 22, 645; LXXVII, 10; ibid., 697). Numerous and rich utensils in silver and glass bearing Christian symbols, found *in situ* (now in the Vatican Library), confirm the Christian character of the site. Some complete and fragmentary Christian sarcophagi, now mostly in the Lateran Museum, were published by Wilpert (Sarcophagi, pls. LXVII, 3; LXXXVI, 2; LXXXVIII, 3; CLXII, 3; CLXX); others are built into the walls of the courtyard of the Portus episcopate. The numerous epigraphic records are collected in CIL, XIV, and in Wickert’s supplement. The text of the inscriptions is distinctly different from those of Ostia.
The large necropolis discovered by Calza at Isola Sacra in 1925 and 1930 served as the burial place for the population of Portus. The scarcity of Christian finds (one tomb and three certainly Christian inscriptions [cf. reproduction under the heading CIMITERI CRISTIANI ANTICHI, III, cols. 1617–1637] out of more than 200 discovered) suggests that for the inhabitants of Portus who had embraced the new religion, the area of Capo due Rami, rich in Christian finds, must have served as their burial ground instead. Among the discoveries made by Calza’s excavation, a large sarcophagus found in the immediate vicinity of the necropolis is noteworthy; although it does not have an immediate parallel among Christian sarcophagi, it is typologically close to Christian depictions from the late 3rd or early 4th century.
The Jewish population, though perhaps not organized into a formal community as at Ostia, was nevertheless numerous and had one or more synagogues; 30 inscriptions discovered in 1834 by Pacca are all in Greek. A large Jewish necropolis was discovered on the Via Portuense.