MELFI AND RAPOLLA, DIOCESE OF. - City and diocese in the province of Potenza, immediately subject to the Holy See. The union of the two sees took place on 16 May 1528. The diocese today has 51,000 inhabitants, of whom 50,380 are Catholics, with 41 churches, 36 diocesan priests and 2 regulars, a seminary, and various religious institutes and houses. The current bishop (1951), Msgr. Petroni, has held the see of Venosa united ad personam since 1 April 1935 (1951).
The importance of M. begins with the occupation of Apulia by the Normans of the House of Hauteville, who built there a strong castle, a bulwark of the conquests that they gradually extended at the expense of the Byzantines and the princes of Salerno, until they established a county there. They withstood a siege there in 1061. According to a document of disputed authenticity, the archbishop of Canosa-Bari would have established the diocese of M. in August 1037. Not long afterward, a diocese was also erected at R., a mile from M.; near it a monk Vitalis had erected a monastery toward the end of the 10th century. Pope Leo IX was at M. in 1050; Baldwin, bishop of M., was present at the great reform Council that Nicholas II held there in 1059 and at the one that Alexander II held there in 1067 to reorganize the region's troubled ecclesiastical relations. On 10 September 1089 Urban II held a third Council there. The bishop of M., who still appears subject to Canosa-Bari in Urban II's bull of 9 October 1089, was made directly subject to the Holy See by Paschal II. Bishop William was present at the Council held by this Pontiff at M. in November 1100. M. was then the theater of the struggle of Emperor Lothair II and of Innocent II against Anacletus II and the Normans in May 1137.
There is news of Bishop Roger in the years 1153 and 1155, while of Rodolfo it is known that he took part in the Lateran Council of 1179, convened by Alexander III. A bishop R. was deposed by Innocent III in 1215 for grave offenses. Worthy of mention among others are: the blessed Alessandro da Santelpidio, a most learned Augustinian hermit (1325-28), author of treatises and commentaries; Onofrio Fr. Sanseverino (1437), a Neapolitan, who took part in the Council held at Ferrara by Eugene IV (1438) and built a great convent for the Observant Friars Minor, demolished in 1812.
MONUMENTS
Ruined several times by earthquakes, M. was able to preserve very little of its monuments. Of the Cathedral the bell tower still remains, square on a high base, which preserves in two inscriptions the name of the maker and the year of its erection: Nosto Remerio 1153, under Bishop Ruggero. In the upper part of the tower the artist composed with red and black stones of the Vulture figures mosaic of rampant lions at the sides of the double-lancet windows, which represent Norman family emblems. Noteworthy are: the splayed portal of S. Maria la Nuova; two medallions depicting the Annunciation, the work of a late 14th-century artist in the church of S. Agostino, and the ogival door of the church of S. Lucia. Also interesting is the church of S. Antonio (1523), situated on the hill to the east of the city, where two Renaissance tombs are preserved along with a rare painting of the 15th cent., perhaps of the Tuscan school, which arrived no one knows how. In the surroundings, of singular interest is the 13th-century Basilian chapel of S. Margherita, on whose walls and vault there remain figurations of the Redeemer enthroned, of the Virgin with the Child, of Apostles and saints, and a remarkable representation of Death in a scene full of vigor, most unusual in Byzantine eremitic iconography.
