Rossano, Diocese of

ROSSANO, Diocese of. - The city of R., in the province of Cosenza, rises on the extreme eastern spurs of the Sila, facing the Ionian Sea, from which it is a few kilometers distant.

It has a population of 80,000 inhabitants, all Catholics, distributed in 34 parishes, served by 49 diocesan priests and 5 regulars; it has a seminary, 2 male religious communities and 12 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 342).

Of little importance in Roman times, it became very important during the Byzantine domination, which made it the center of resistance against the Saracen invasions and chose it as the seat of the governor of the duchy of Calabria. It reached its apogee in the 10th century, in the time of St. Nilus, and in the 11th, shortly before the arrival of the Normans. With these new rulers the center was moved first to S. Marco Argentano, then to Mileto and finally to Palermo, whereby R. lost its strategic importance and declined.

It must be excluded that the episcopal see is of apostolic origin, nor can the claims of those who want the church of St. Michael the Archangel of Codigno consecrated by bishop John in 350 be accepted. In reality, R. succeeded Turio, when this city was destroyed by the Saracens or the Lombards toward the end of the 7th century. In fact the last bishop of Turio is that Theophanes, who appears in the Synod of Pope Agatho in 679.

Therefore R. is without doubt of Byzantine foundation and its origin can be assigned to the first half of the 8th century. However it should be noted that in the Greek Diatyposes it does not appear in Notitia I, but only in III and X, which are from the time of Leo VI the Wise, that is, from the beginning of the 10th century. In these Notitiae R. appears as a suffragan of Reggio, which was the metropolis of the eparchy of Calabria. The title of archbishop, assumed by Romanus, prelate of R., appears for the first time at the foot of a Greek document of 1088, and not in 1091, as Minasi and Fabre erroneously believed. However it should be noted that it was already in vogue from the 10th century, as appears from the Life of St. Nilus, who was requested as archbishop of R. around 970. Nevertheless R. was never a metropolis and the requests insistently advanced to have as suffragan the diocese of Cariati, formed with part of its territory in 1438, were never granted by the Holy See. The territory of the diocese of R. suffered a second mutilation when in 1919 the diocese of Lungro was constituted, which took from it the villages of Albanian origin, among them S. Demetrio Corone, the intellectual and historical center of the Italo-Albanians. However Spezzano Albanese, which had adopted and still maintains the Latin rite, remained attached to R.

The Greek rite, established at R. from its origin, was maintained until 1640, in which it was replaced by the Latin one through the work of archbishop Matteo Saraceni. An attempt at replacement made by count Roger met with such opposition on the part of the Rossanesi that he deemed it opportune to withdraw. The Greek rite was nourished by the Basilian monks, who had established themselves in the numerous Greek monasteries of the diocese, of which R. alone had seven. Among these monasteries particular mention deserves to be made of the two very famous ones of S. Adriano, near S. Demetrio Corone, founded by St. Nilus in 950 and illustrated by Gay, and that of S. Maria Nuova Odigiria or 4 of the Patirion 1, founded between R. and Corigliano around 1100 by St. Bartholomew of Simeri, which became a very important center of Byzantine civilization in the West throughout the Middle Ages. It was illustrated by P. Batiffol, who wrote a splendid monograph on it and affirmed that the Patirion is for Greek humanism what Bobbio is for Latin humanism.

Among the Latin abbeys are to be remembered: the Benedictine one of S. Maria di Camigliano near Tarsia, the Florense one of S. Angelo Militino and the Cistercian one of S. Maria de ligno Crucis between Corigliano and Acri. The mendicant Orders established themselves there in recent times: the Augustinians

(phot. Ass. Mezzogiorno)

ROSSANO, DIOCESE of - Apses of the Patirion (12th cent.).

at Tarsia, the Observants at R., the Minims and the Capuchins at R. and Corigliano.

Among the men who have honored R. and the diocese are to be remembered in a particular way the Basilian saints: St. Nilus, who is the most illustrious representative of Italo-Greek culture; St. Bartholomew, hagiographer, hymnographer, melode and legislator, who is the last great representative of Italo-Greek hymnography; the blesseds George, Stephen, Paul, Luke and Nilus II, who to holiness added love of culture; Giovanni Panareta, who is the greatest representative of the Italo-Greek calligraphic school; Theophanes Cerameus, to whom is owed the most copious collection of Greek homilies in the Middle Ages; Giovanni Filagato, counselor of Otto II and Otto III, abbot of Nonantola, archbishop of Piacenza and finally antipope under the name of John XVI. They are all from R., to which tradition also assigns the two popes St. Zosimus and John VII.

In the Latin field are remembered the blessed Marino, of the Franciscan Third Order, and Silvestro Di Franco, a Capuchin, who was a distinguished preacher, procurator general, and a highly esteemed ascetical writer. Outside R. are to be remembered Father Matteo Persiano, Father Francesco Longo, a most prolific theological and canonical writer of the Capuchins, and Father Tommaso Puglisi, a distinguished Carmelite historian, all from Corigliano; the venerable Fiorentino da Longobucco, companion of St. Francis of Paola.

Among its prelates are worthy of note, besides Theophanes Cerameus and Matteo Saraceni already mentioned, Vincenzo Pampinella, who held many diplomatic assignments from the Holy See; the cardinals Francesco Colonna, Girolamo Verallo and Gambattista Castagna, who later became pope Urban VII; cardinal Lucio Sanseverino, who held a synod in 1594; Andrea Adeodati of the Benedictines, Francesco Maria Muscettola of the Theatines and finally Orazio Mazzella, a distinguished theologian, later archbishop of Taranto.

Francesco Russo

THE PURPLE GOSPEL BOOK OF ROSSANO

Deservedly famous, even more so than the manuscripts of the Patirion, is the Gospel Book of the Chapter of R., of the 6th century, a Greek parchment codex with very thin leaves dyed purple, measuring 260 x 307 mm., richly illuminated and written in two columns in beautiful uncial with large silver letters (the titles and the first lines of each book in gold).

Originally it comprised all four Gospels. In its present state it consists of 188 leaves, numbered in modern times in black ink on the recto and verso, and comprises Matthew and Mark up to 16:14; it reveals transpositions and mutilations at the beginning and at the end, the latter caused by a fire, as may be inferred from traces of burning on the outermost leaves.

Its discovery is attributed to O. von Gebhardt and A. Harnack, who saw it in 1879 at the Chapter of R., but already in 1845 the Italian journalist C. Malpica had given notice of it; nor can the manuscript have remained hidden for a long time, since it was probably still in use in the 15th century (the era in which the Latin rite supplanted the Greek one in the territory of R.) and the present binding, later than the aforementioned losses, cannot go back further than the 17th-18th century.

The miniatures clearly reveal its Eastern origin, from Asia Minor: whether precisely from Cappadocia, as some maintain, it is not possible to prove. The stylistic elements and the iconographic characteristics suggest a comparison with the Genesis of Vienna (cod. Vin-

ROSSANO. DIOCESE OF - Minor portal of the Cathedral (14th cent.). Rossano.

dobonensis L, of the 5th-6th century) and with the Sinopensis O (cod. Parisinus, suppl. graec. 1286, plus a leaf preserved at Mariupol on the Sea of Azov); on the other hand, the harmonious balance of the various compositional elements, the vivid coloristic sense and the technical skill with a clear Byzantine imprint have invited, for the scenes of the Gospel Book, comparison with the mosaics of Ravenna, which are, however, more static and uniform. It is noteworthy that the four purple manuscripts of the Greek text of the Gospels that still survive (the Codex purpureus N, divided among the Libraries of Vienna, London, Patmos, Leningrad and the Vatican; the Beratinus Φ; the Sinopensis O and the Rossanensis Σ) all belong to one and the same recension (the recensio Caesariensis) and go back to the same era (6th century): probably their provenance is identical as well.

Alessandro Pratesi

ART

The small town had a very flourishing artistic life in the early Middle Ages, above all because it was one of the major centers of Basilian monasticism in Calabria. The oldest monument, the small Byzantine church of St. Mark, very similar to the Cattolica of Stilo, dates back to the 10th century. It has a central plan with four equal sides, divided internally into a narthex and a nave, and ends with three apses lit by double-light windows with pulvini. It is surmounted by five cylindrical domes: the extrados of these is in the form of a calotte, but it is doubtful whether it was originally in masonry compact or not rather covered with tiles and in truncated-conical form. The interior, which underwent an enlargement perhaps in the 15th century, was restored some years ago, and during the restoration traces of important Byzantine frescoes came to light. To the same Basilian era belong the little church of the Ilzviii and that of S. M. del Piliere, so called from a fresco of the Virgin preserved on a pillar of the La costruzione. Another fresco of the Acheropita on a pillar of the Cathedral, enlarged in the Gothic period, but totally altered afterwards. In the Treasury of the Cathedral, together with some paintings, among which a Byzantine Pietà signed by Andrea Pavia da Candia, and other artistic furnishings, the celebrated Codex purpureus Rossanensis is preserved. Besides the Cathedral, mention should be made of the church of S. Bernardino, in late Gothicizing forms, very common in Calabria throughout the 15th century, due to the superimposition of elements partly sharing in the international currents, partly in the more definite Catalan influences prevailing in the South and spread through the region in many buildings of the Order of the Observant Friars. Inside is the beautiful 16th-century tomb of Oliverio de Summa.

A few kilometers from the town, on a deserted and steep ridge, stands another distinguished medieval monument, the ancient monastery of S. M. del Patir or Patirion, founded by Bartolomeo da Simeri in the very first years of the 12th century (bull of Pope Paschal II of 1105). Of the ancient Basilian cenobium there remain today only some remnants of the cloister and the church: this has a basilical plan with three apses decorated on the outside with polychrome tesserae of Siculo-Norman derivation. To this cultural orbit also belong the fragments of the beautiful mosaic pavement, commissioned by Abbot Blasio, successor of Bartolomeo, with polychrome tesserae with animal figures, with friezes and an inscription. To the Patirion belonged the 15th-century panel of the Odigitria with the Crucifixion on the verso, a repetition of an ancient Byzantine icon, today preserved in the church of S. Pietro at Corigliano.