RAGUSA, DIOCESI di (Diocese of Ragusa). - Erected on 6 May 1950, by dismembering seven municipalities from the archdiocese of Syracuse and one from the diocese of Noto. It is united "aeque principaliter" to Syracuse. It comprises a territory of 1,000 sq. km., with a population of 135,000 inhabitants, of whom 133,000 are Catholics; it has 110 diocesan priests and 22 regulars, 6 male religious communities and 24 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 381). Beginning in 1952, the "Little Seminary of St. John the Baptist" was established, limited to the three middle-school classes, dependent on the director of the archiepiscopal Seminary of Syracuse.
Before the foundation of the diocese, the members of the Church of Ragusa were organized into five rural vicariates, an arrangement that arose after the Council of Trent, whereas before that, instead, the churches of the major municipalities constituted a benefice of the canons of the Metropolitan Church of Syracuse.
The territory of the diocese of R. was in prehistoric times populated by the Siculi, with necropolises carved into the rocky walls of the valleys; the indigenous name of Ibla belongs, with great probability, to the city of R. In the Greek age the territory was Hellenized by the colony of Camarina. In the Roman period some small towns arose, in the vicinity of which are found the principal testimonies of primitive Christianity, catacombs and hypogea, generally of the Constantinian age, but with some more ancient element. Churches of the Byzantine age are documented at Caucana, Acrilla and Comiso. In the anchorage of Caucana, in 533, the fleet of Belisarius assembled to set sail for Malta and Africa.
The importance of R. in the Norman period - it had been conquered by the Arabs in 856 - is attested by the geography of Edrisi, in his celebrating its buildings and squares, its land fit for sowing, the frequency of its commerce, its nobility and ancient civilization. In this period it was granted in fief by Count Roger to one of his fellow soldiers, and perhaps his natural son, Godfrey, who took the name of Ragusia; he contributed to the endowment of the Church of Syracuse and in R. built the abbey of S. Maria la Nuova and donated the mother church of S. Giorgio.
The development of R. was affected by the particular forms of the Sicilian feudal regime, which, where personal initiatives, fertility of the land and vitality of trade converge, permits the formation of a bourgeois and noble class, culminating in the attainment of communal institutions. R. counted 7,827 inhabitants in 1583, which rose in 1714 to 8,863 and to 23,500 toward the end of the 18th century.
In R. the surviving portal of the ancient church of S. Giorgio, built around the middle of the 15th century, is to be considered one of the most elegant examples of the Sicilian architecture of the time, made of Castilian volumes; the stylized flower with which the arch concludes is accompanied by a series of figurative sculptures suited to the architectural function. At Chiaramonte the oldest part of the sanctuary of Gulfi dates back to the same period; while two marble statues of the Savior and the Madonna belong to the Renaissance; at Comiso the structures of the Castle, the church of S. Francesco, the work of a whimsical craftsman who combined with exceptional skill varied architectural experiences, are testimonies of the nobility of architecture that marked the chief town and the major centers before the earthquake that in 1693 gravely damaged them. Rising again from destruction, R. was enriched with a new quarter, which, drawing from the slope the motives for an appropriate urban layout, attributed to the animator of the rebirth, Baron Mario Leggio, became the new urban center. The church of S. Giorgio Nuovo, in the old quarter, begun in 1739 (arch. R. Gagliardi) and enriched internally with paintings and decorations, among which are the remains of a tribune of Spanish manner from the previous church, is the major building of the old city, crowned by thirty minor churches (about 40 no longer exist), as well as by palaces among which it is worth recalling that of Sortino, with a rich Baroque balustrade, and that of Donnafugata, which houses a notable collection of paintings and ceramics. In the new city the cathedral of S. Giovanni, in Baroque taste, erected between 1706 and 1778, contains notable works of art (paintings by Manno, Vaccaro, Paolo Vetri), while the church of the Ecce Homo (1808) is notable for its scenographic arrangement and that of the Collegio represents one of the most correct examples of the Sicilian 18th century. To these works has been added a whole complex of new buildings, following the elevation of R. to the status of capital of the province of the same name in 1926.
In the field of religious institutions R. boasts a constant tradition of civic liberality. Charitable works and confraternities have arisen in every age through the initiative of individuals and families; among these the Opera
Ospedale Sammito, the Messa dell'Alba, the Ospedale Paternò-Arezzò and lastly the Sozzi and Cartia donations, which constituted the basis for the erection of the diocese.
Among the personalities of R. should be remembered the Jesuit Niccolò Urso, celebrated by Aguilera for his exemplary virtues; G. B. Odierna (1597-1660), famous astronomer; the theologian Carlo Bellio of the second half of the 15th century; Ascenzo Guerrieri, teacher of Pope Urban VIII, who raised him to bishop of Castellaneta in Apulia; the polyglot and orientalist Vincenzo Laurefice, who in 1623 was named bishop of Monreale; Giuseppe Miceli Marquez, author of a Latin-Spanish ecclesiastical lexicon; the bibliophile
Alessandro Gaspano, abbot of S. Maria Latina in Messina, who in 1667 donated his library to the convent of the Capuchins of R. Mention should also be made of Fr. Anselmo da R., apostolic prefect of Bengal; in more recent times G. di Stefano, founder (1781) of a substantial charitable work; G. B. Marini, creator (1774) of the infant asylum; Sister Maria Schininà, foundress of the flourishing religious Order of the Sacred Heart.
Some municipalities of the diocese boast notable religious traditions. Chiaramonte has in its suburb, the site of the settlement until the Angevin age, the much-frequented sanctuary of the Madonna di Gulfi, whose origin is traced back to the Byzantine age; in the present city, among the ten churches, six of which are conventual, S. Maria la Nuova is a good example of provincial structures of the 17th century, as is S. Giovanni Battista, with some decoration of mixed marbles. Chiaramonte gave birth to numerous citizens of clear fame, such as the laureate poet of the 15th century Tommaso Chaula, G. A. Cannizzo, celebrated jurist of the 16th century, the ecclesiastics Vito Pizza and Egidio Mancurzio, both philosophers and theologians in the 17th century.
At Comiso, besides the aforementioned medieval churches of S. Gregorio al Castello and of S. Francesco, one notes the Chiesa Madre, the most extensive temple of the ancient archdiocese of Syracuse, of 15th-century origin, rebuilt by Gagliardi (1706), with a ceiling painted by the Messinese Barbalogna (17th century), sculptures by Gagini, Marabitti and Villareale, and various paintings among which the Birth of the Virgin by Maratti; the Annunziata, invested with the oldest Chapter of the diocese, established on a church of the Norman age, modified after the earthquake of 1693, into a unified complex by the architect G. B. Cascione, is for harmony of lines and fineness of decoration a masterpiece of the late 18th century. Among the other churches (10, of which 5 parish churches; another 15 transformed or destroyed) mention must be made of the sanctuary of St. Blaise with an elegant 17th-century facade. Once the seat of 7 religious families and of a College of Mary, all abolished, Comiso now has an orphanage and a home for the elderly run by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, a nursery school of the Ursuline sisters and numerous other institutions of education, assistance and charity. Among the personalities to whom it gave birth, mention is made of Fr. Pietro Palazzo (16th century) and Fr. Mansueto Cocigra. - See plate XIX.
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