POZZUOLI, DIOCESE OF
Pozzuoli is a city and diocese in the province of Naples. It covers an area of 77 km² with a population of 153,364, of whom 152,307 are Catholics. There are 40 parishes served by 70 diocesan priests and 25 religious priests; the diocese has a seminary, a diocesan college, 5 male religious communities, and 25 female religious communities.
POZZUOLI, DIOCESE OF – View of the gulf from Cape Miseno.
The diocese is a suffragan of Naples (*Ann. Pont.*, 1952, p. 328).
P., known in Greek as *Dieacrhia* and in Roman times as *Puteoli*, is situated in the Gulf of Naples between Cape Posillipo and Cape Miseno, at the heart of the volcanic region of the Phlegraean Fields. It was founded around 529 BC by political refugees from Samos. Subject to Cumae, it shared that city’s fortunes during the Etruscan and Samnite wars. In 194 BC it became Roman territory and a colony was established there. From that time onward, its commercial port grew in importance, reaching its peak during the Empire. All ships coming from Mediterranean ports called at P., and merchants from every land settled there, forming national guilds and importing their religions along with their goods. The Jews, too, arriving from the diaspora cities—especially Alexandria—had a commercial quarter in P., as attested by Flavius Josephus (*Antiq. Jud.*, XVII, 12).
Under Augustus, the ever-increasing activity of the port led to the reconstruction of the mole on fifteen giant piers (*opus pilarum*). Though these piers have almost entirely disappeared, they remain one of the fundamental monuments in the evolution of port engineering from antiquity to the present day. Toward the end of the 1st century, when the port of Ostia was reorganized—work begun by Claudius in AD 42—and maritime trade shifted to the mouth of the Tiber, P.’s commercial importance declined and vanished entirely by the dawn of the Middle Ages.
Among the monuments of ancient Roman P. still extant are: the market, also called the Temple of Serapis, famous for the phenomenon of bradyseism; the small amphitheatre; the great Flavian amphitheatre, where in AD 305 Januarius, bishop of Benevento, Sosius, deacon Menas, Festus, deacon, Desiderius, reader, Proculus, deacon of Puteoli, and the laymen Eutyches and Acutius were condemned to the beasts, and later beheaded not far from the Solfatara; the columbaria and tombs along the Via Campana; the baths and ruins of Roman villas scattered around the area, facing the sea.
Christianity arrived early in P. and made converts among the numerous Jews, so that when St Paul landed there in chains in the spring of AD 61 (*Acts* 28:14), he found a Christian community already in existence, which induced him to remain there for seven days before continuing on to Rome. According to a later tradition, the first bishop of P. was St Proculus, who is said to have suffered martyrdom under Diocletian. The *Acta* of the martyrs Proculus, Acutius, and Eutyches relate that their bodies were taken to the *praetorium* of Falcidus, which was connected to the basilica of St Stephen in the same district (*ibid.*, p. 869). This district was the point where the Via Cella, coming from P., branched off toward Capua on the left and Naples on the right. It seems likely that the so-called *arenaria* was located here as well; and if, as some believe, in the centuries from the late Empire to the Middle Ages the term *praetorium* referred to a suburban villa, the reference in the *Acta* would point to the villa of a certain Falcidus, a name known from an inscription found in Rome at S. Vitale (*CIL*, VI, 1, 1944). This cemetery is thought to have been in the area belonging to Falcidus, to which was attached the church of St Stephen, of which notable remains have come to light. The church, occupying an area of 36 m² (*G. De Criscio* [q.V. bibliography], p. 8, no. 1) with its façade to the east, was the first in P.; almost its entire pavement survives, supported by a subterranean vault and two side chapels. Another basilica is thought to have been identified from ruins nearby; these are the remains of a monumental complex of buildings that can no longer be identified. They may, however, be connected with a monastery that arose on the praetorium, mentioned by Gregory the Great (*Ep.*, X, 6, 1: *PL* 77, 1113) in a letter to Abbot Adeodatus, to whom he entrusts “the monastery situated at Puteoli, called Falcidi,” which the monks had abandoned to such an extent that “no divine office is celebrated there” and it is “almost regarded as abandoned.” When this monastery was founded and when it was completely abandoned is unknown.
Another basilica is mentioned in the *Acta Vaticana* (p. 86), which state that St Januarius was buried in a place called *Marcianus ad sulphurotariam* (sic), where a basilica worthy of the martyr was later built (4th century?). In its place now stands a Capuchin convent, but no trace remains of the old basilica. A mausoleum containing the relics of St Julian, translated from Nicomedia (*Acta SS. Februarii*, II, Antwerp 1658, p. 870, ch. 2) after AD 304, is known only by the indication that it stood “one mile from the sea.”
Very few are the certainly Christian inscriptions from P. (*CIL*, X, 3300, 3303-4-5-6, 3309, 3313, 3315), and only two are dated: those of the Puteolan bishops Theodore and Misenus, respectively of AD 435 and 511 (*CIL*, X, 3208 and 3209). Notable is the marble slab (*ibid.* 3310), from the ancient cathedral of St Stephen, which records that, on the untimely death of the young C. Nonius Flavianus, his parents erected a “basilica,” or cell, edicule, or funerary oratory, in or against the church.
Even rarer are fragments of Christian sculpture: a) a reused stone with a Byzantine cross, beside which are the figures of Christ and St Peter with nimbus; b) a pedestal 1.15 m high, on whose faces are carved the apostles Peter and Paul with a cross.