Reggio Emilia, Diocese of

REGGIO EMILIA, DIOCESE OF. - It extends over 1982 sq km and counts 349,000 Catholics out of 349,500 inhabitants: 450 churches, 256 parishes, 393 diocesan priests and 63 regular clergy; it has 3 seminaries, 7 male religious communities and 14 female. It borders the dioceses of Guastalla, Carpi, Modena, Apuania, Pontremoli, Parma and is a suffragan of Modena. Patron of the diocese: primary, St. Prospero, bishop of R. between the 4th and 5th centuries, and equally principally the martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria, whose relics were translated to R. in 947. Co-patron is St. Venerio.

I. HISTORY

The founding of the city is attributed by some to the Ligurians or the Etruscans, by others to the Gallic Boii or the Romans. The Forum Lepidi Regii has the same origin as the other similar cities, founded ab imis or Romanized along the axis of that road built by the Roman consul M. Aemilius Lepidus in 187 B.C. After the fall of the Roman Empire (476), R. suffered the domination of Odoacer and the Goths; under the Lombards it became the seat of a duke (569-90); it returned to the Eastern Empire in 590 and in 599 once again to the Lombards (599-773), until it was subjugated by Charlemagne, who, in 781, confirmed the rights of the bishop, determining the boundaries of the diocese. When and through whose work Christianity penetrated the Reggio area is not known. For R. the oldest Christian monument is the inscription of Mavarta, of the year 487 or 510 (CIL, XI, n. 1019). The catalogues of the bishops of Reggio, in their ancient portion, do not deserve credence (cf. A. Mercati [v. bibl.], p. 11). Starting from the first certain date of the presence of a bishop in R., the year 451, one may hold that R. was erected as an episcopal see in the second half of the 4th century (A. Mercati [v. bibl.], pp. 10-12), if not already in the first half of that century (cf. Lanzoni, p. 443). In its formation, R. too found itself subject to the metropolitan of Milan. In the second half of the 5th century, according to a letter of 29 May 482 from Pope Simplicius to John, archbishop of Ravenna, R. is a suffragan of that city. On 22 Aug. 1583, Gregory XIII elevated Bologna to a metropolis, and subjected R. to it as well, which, in 1855, passed under the metropolitan see of Modena, then erected. The boundaries of the diocese, determined originally by Charlemagne in 781 and then by Otto I, in his diploma of 2 Apr. 962, underwent changes several times and were notably reduced through erections or in favour of other dioceses (A. Cerlini, I confini carolingi della diocesi di R., in Studi di storia, di letteratura e d'arte in onore di N. Campanini, Reggio Emilia 1921, pp. 235-42).

The bishop of R. had comital powers over the city thanks to the concessions of Otto I and Conrad II (1027); but the city soon constituted itself as a commune and in 1137 seven of its consuls are recorded; it joined the Lombard League in 1168 and took part in the Peace of Constance in 1183. Disputes with the surrounding cities and internal struggles soon began, in which the great families played a large part and which led to foreign domination. In 1409 R. passed under the Este family, who held it until 1796; except for the years 1512-23, when it was under the direct dominion of the Holy See. After the Revolution the Este held R. from 1814 to 1859.

Among the most distinguished ecclesiastical figures R. has St. Albert of the Avogadri, a native of Gualtirolum (d. 1214), Latin patriarch of Jerusalem; Cardinal Pighini of Arceto (d. 1533), pontifical legate to the Council of Trent; Cardinal Domenico Toschi of Castellarano (1620), jurist and author of legal conclusions; Cardinal Giacomo Corradi (d. 1666). Among the artists, illustrious men and scientists: Matteo Maria Boiardo (v.), Ludovico Ariosto (v.), Correggio (v.), Bartolomeo Spani (d. 1539), Prospero Spani-Sogari (d. 1584), Guido Pancioli (d. 1599), Antonio Vallisneri (d. 1777), Lazzaro Spallanzani (d. 1799), Carlo Zucchi (d. 1863), Giovanni (d. 1875) and Antonio Fontanesi (d. 1882), Angelo Secchi (d. 1878), the palethnologist Gaetano Chierici (d. 1886), Alfonso (d. 1873) and Gaetano Chierici (d. 1920), painters.

II. INSTITUTES OF CULTURE

Around 1040, through the work of Sichelmo, a Studium was also opened at R. To this Studium, as to that of Droco at Parma, students flocked from many parts of Italy and from abroad. In this school one was taught to understand directly the masterpieces of rhetoric (v. bibliography of the entry SICHELMO). The evolution from a Studium held by ecclesiastics to a lay Studium, always controlled by the bishop, appears to have been slow, and it seems that the Commune took upon itself the burden of paying the teachers. In the teaching there succeeded one another magistri or doctores of such a kind as to suggest a strong local juridical tradition. It suffices to recall Giuliano da Sesso, Accursio giudice, Bernardo Talenti, Guido da Suzzara, Giovanni del Bondeno, Guido da Baiso and Pangratino, who taught there at the same time. Through the broad beneficial influence of nearby Bologna with its school, the capitular and ecclesiastical school of Reggio also became a university organism, founded on a universitas scholarium, with the corresponding college of doctors. Despite interruptions, more or less brief, caused first by the financial scarcity of the Commune, then by its decline, and later by other circumstances, the Studium Regiense had survived and had recently settled in the lowest and least ancient part of the Palazzo Busetti; but, in 1772, Duke Francesco III of Modena, having reorganized the University of that city, suppressed it in favor of the latter.

The principal Library of R. is the civic one, established in 1796, which possesses: 161,925 volumes, 450 incunabula, 324 Aldine editions and more than 400 manuscripts, among which are numerous humanistic codices, Ariostean editions, almost all the manuscripts of L. Spallanzani and the most precious Ferrarini codex. Of the other libraries mention should be made of: the Capitular, with the Capitular Archive, with documents on the Church and the diocese of Reggio; that of the urban Seminary, with incunabula and manuscripts. At R. there is also the Civic Museum or, better, several museums, gathered in the Museum of Natural History "L. Spallanzani"; the Fontanesi Gallery, with works by Bartolomeo and Giacomo Maineri, fragments of Correggio, canvases by A. Tiarini and by the Reggio painters A. Fontanesi, A. Chierici, Luca da R. and others; the Museum of Palethnology "G. Chierici"; a Cabinet of Numismatics, with Greek, Roman and medieval coins; the Museum of ancient Reggio industrial art, especially of the silk introduced at R. in 1502; the Gallery, now civic, constituted by Luigi Parmeggiani in a modern palace of 15th-century French Gothic style, with a portal in Hispano-Moorish architecture of the 16th century brought there from Valencia, and which contains paintings by Spanish "primitives", a Redeemer by El Greco, Italian and Flemish pictures, Gothic sculptures, French furniture, fabrics, laces, weapons, costumes, silverware, musical instruments, ivories and objects in bronze and crystal.

III. MONUMENTS

The ancient cloisters of the Grazie and of the Corpus Domini in the city are very small (A. Fulloni [v. bibl.], pp. 23-24, 27-28). The largest and oldest church is the Cathedral, founded around the year 857, completely rebuilt in the second half of the 13th century; a Romanesque building with a facade vividly painted in every part, as fragments still visible attest, disfigured in the 16th century; the chapels, especially that of the Most Holy Sacrament, contain works by B. and P. Spani, to whom belong the great statue of the Madonna, in repoussé copper, on the front side of the octagonal tiburium above the facade, and the marble statues of Adam and Eve, above the main door. After the Cathedral comes the basilica of St. Prospero (the facade by G. B. Cattani, between 1748-53), a work by L. Corti of Viano and Matteo fiorentino, in the first half of the 16th century on the primitive (smaller) Basilica. To this Basilica was annexed a monastery of the Benedictines, destroyed in 1351 or 1356. The unfinished octagonal tower, in stone, beside the facade, is also from the first half of the 16th century. Still to be remembered are: the sanctuary of the Madonna della Ghiara, in late Renaissance style, with frescoes and canvases by Guercino, by A. Tiarini, L. Spada, Luca da Reggio and others; the temple of Sts. Peter and Prospero, rebuilt by the Benedictines, on a design by Giulio della Torre, in the years 1586-89; the church of St. Jerome, a work by G. Vigarani; the church of St. Augustine, rebuilt by the same in the years 1561-66, in replacement of the one erected in Lombard style in the first half of the 15th century, a work by A. Casotti, of which the octagonal apse and the conical brick tower remain: the church of St. George and the oratory of Christ, the church of St. John the Evangelist, with frescoes by T. Sandrini, by S. Badalocchio, by P. Guidotti and with a Pietà attributed to G. Mazzoni. Among the most important sacred monuments in the province are: the church of St. Mary of Castello at Toano, with three naves, of Romanesque architecture from the Matildic era (burned in the Second World War and completely restored and reconsecrated on 15 Aug. 1951) and the Matildic church, also with three naves, of St. Mary near the Seminary of Marola, which was consecrated by Bishop Alberio in 1151; as well as the Matildic oratory of Belso di Gombio, 10 km. from Cesina. - See plate XXXIII.

Bruno Leoni