RIETI, DIOCESE of. In Latium and in the Abruzzi, in the province of R., it borders on the dioceses of Terni, Sabina and Poggio Mirteto, Tivoli, L'Aquila and Ascoli Piceno. It measures an area of 2,700 sq. km., with 125,000 inhabitants, all Catholics, distributed among 172 parishes, with 155 secular priests and 35 regulars, 10 male congregations and 24 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 338). It has its minor seminary in R. and its major seminary in Assisi, shared with the dioceses of Umbria.
R., called Reute by the Latins, is situated in the center of the valley that takes its name from it and boasts of being also the geographical center of Italy; on a rough stone slab in the little square of the church of S. Rufo one reads: « Medium totius Italiae ». An ancient capital of the Sabines, it was later a Roman municipium, and, after the barbarian incursions, a Lombard gastaldate and a Frankish county. Under Adrian I it became part of the Papal State, and when Pius VII instituted the delegations, R. was the seat of the one of the same name that comprised the whole of Sabina. Until the division of the provinces, decreed in 1927, R. with its district depended on Umbria.
The documents that claim to trace the preaching of the Gospel to R. with the consequent episcopal see back to the pre-Constantinian age have no serious foundation. The mission of St. Prosdocimus, the supposed protobishop of Padua, on the part of the Prince of the Apostles is legendary. A Latin translation (BHL, 2450) of the Greek Martyrdom of St. Eleutherius relates that the latter came to Rome and there suffered martyrdom with his mother Anaia, and that their bodies, seized, were brought to R. and buried a mile distant from the city, along the Via Salaria on a small estate of the bishop Primus, where a church was built. The aforementioned translation is very probably of the 6th century. In the Jeronymian Martyrology, on Nov. 24 and Sept. 6, a bishop Eleutherius is commemorated at R., and St. Gregory the Great (Dial., IV, 12) attests the veneration at R. of a St. Eleutherius in about the middle of the 6th century. In fact there existed at R. a basilica of St. Eleutherius, around which Christian inscriptions were found. But none of the aforementioned witnesses says that this St. Eleutherius venerated at R. held the see of Rieti.
The first of the bishops of Rieti certainly known is Ursus, who took part in the Roman Synods of 499, 501 and 502. Thus the existence of the diocese of R. by the end of the 5th century is beyond dispute. In the 6th century there is record of the existence of the cathedral of Rieti dedicated to the Virgin. A letter of St. Gregory the Great (Reg., I, 9, 49), of 598, says that « Paulus Ecclesiae Reatinae diaconus » asks the Pope for relics of Sts. Hermes, Hyacinth and Maximus for the baptismal font of the basilica (cathedral) of St. Mary. As an inscription walled up in the sacristy of the Confraternity of the Stigmata attests, the present basilica was begun in 1109 by bishop Benincasa and was solemnly consecrated by Pope Honorius III in 1225. But the primitive Romanesque lines of the temple disappeared with the Baroque restoration of 1639. Despite the alterations, however, the crypt and the portico of the Cathedral, the bell tower and the episcopal palace retain their Romanesque appearance; the latter, owing to the political vicissitudes of the times, welcomed in its halls, not a few times, in the 12th and 13th centuries, the bishops of Rome. Toward the end of the 11th century the diocese of Amiterno (v.) was united to R. until 1257, when the latter was united to the diocese of L'Aquila (v.). In 1502 Alexander VI took from R. Città Ducale, which he created a diocese, but six years later Julius II restored matters.
The papers preserved in the municipal and episcopal Archives of R. are not earlier than 1225, since the fire of 1217 burned all the previous ones. In the diocese of R. one should remember the ancient monasteries of S. Salvatore Maggiore, of Sts. Quiricus and Julitta at Introdoco; of St. Eleutherius; of St. George; of St. Michael; of Sts. Pastor and Matthew. Referring to the most ancient and important of these monasteries, Pius XI, on June 3, 1925, united to R. the abbatial title of S. Salvatore Maggiore. The Franciscan sanctuaries of Greccio, Fonte Colombo, La Foresta and Poggio Bustone have impressed a character of mysticism on the valley of R.; they form an ideal cross, and from them it takes the name of Holy Valley. All of them link their origin to the presence of St. Francis, who chose these elevated places for his mystical ascents. They are all mentioned in the early Franciscan literature and have a notable part in the history of the spirituality of the Order of Friars Minor. Greccio is considered by the devotees of St. Francis as the Bethlehem of Franciscanism, since the Saint, in the grotto of the sacred wood, made the idyll of Bethlehem live again for the Christian world in a plastic form. The little convent, begun by the Saint himself, was continued in construction by St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, but the restoration of the 16th century has impressed on it a simplicity and poverty that makes it characteristic and unmistakable, like its panoramic view, a swallow's nest.
Fonte Colombo is considered as the Sinai of the Franciscan era, especially by the spiritual literature of the Order, which saw in it the Rule given to the founder as the Law given to Moses. Its name perhaps comes from « Fons columbarum », as the hill was called in the time of the Saint. In the building complex of the sanctuary one can distinguish the era of St. Francis, that of St. Bernardine of Siena, and principally the rebuildings of the 16th century.
La Foresta, because of its dominant position, open to the sun and sheltered from the winds, must have been chosen by the Saint for rest, of the spirit as well as of the body. When St. Francis arrived there, there was a little church dedicated to Pope St. Fabian. In 1947 the apse of that little church was discovered and subsequently the right wall and the entire perimeter. The remains of paintings have been judged to be of the 14th century. At present the building complex is under restoration that aims to make visible the periods of the different structures. Poggio Bustone recalls the penance of St. Francis and the promises made to him by God for himself and for his friars. The little convent is dedicated to St. James of the Marches and bears the characteristic stamp of the 15th century, even if later rebuildings have attempted to disfigure it, thanks above all to the restoration carried out in Aug. 1952.
These sanctuaries are still today cared for by the Friars Minor of the Roman province, who particularly since 1946, through the work of Msgr. Cristoforo Terzi of the same province, have lovingly attended to the building restoration and the arrangement of the access roads, giving new life to these places of spiritual rest, so dear to the devotees of the saint of Assisi.
The diocese of R. is immediately subject to the Holy See and has its ordinary court of appeal in the episcopal curia of Spoleto.
Bibliography15 works
Benedetto Pesci