SALERNO, ARCHDIOCESE OF. – City and archdiocese of Campania. It has a population of 276,950 inhabitants, all Catholic; it comprises 164 parishes served by 229 diocesan priests and 103 regular clergy; it has 24 male and 65 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 347).
HISTORY. – Up to the 7th century, when in 646 it was wrested from Byzantium by the Lombards, the city had passed from the Romans to various conquerors without distinction. During the Roman occupation a Jewish community settled in Salerno, and this may have favoured the introduction of Christianity in the early centuries of the Empire, as attested by some funerary inscriptions datable before the 5th century (CIL, X, 1, nos. 664-74). The establishment of the episcopal see may have occurred in the 4th century or earlier, but the sources are lacking. There is also no testimony regarding the first bishops, although they are not only considered such but are venerated as protectors of the city. Among them are recalled Bonosus (Acta SS. Maii, III, p. 373), Gramatius (ibid., Octobris, V, p. 671), Verus (ibid., IX, p. 47), Eusterius (ibid., VIII, 436) and Valentinus or Valentinianus (ibid., Novembris, I, p. 657). Other authors vary the order and shift the time of their governance, but without foundation: all remain shrouded in obscurity, as do two other saintly prelates, “Cyrinus” and “Quingesius” or Quingesius, although in favour of the latter, if the three letters of Gelasius I (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 743, 654, 712) are truly addressed to him.
The first historically certain bishop is the sixth in the series, Gaudentius (499), who took part in the Roman council of Pope Symmachus. His successor Asterius (536 and 555-60) intervened as legate of the Holy See at the Council of Constantinople (Mansi, VIII, pp. 877-1141; Jaffé-Wattenbach, 958); in the following century Luminosus attended the Roman council of Martin I (649) and John that of Pope Agatho (680). Of the prelates of the 8th century many names are known, but no testimony survives, with the exception of Leo (b. 761). From the following century the series of bishops is almost continuous, perhaps also because Salerno, having become in 839 the capital of an independent Lombard state, enjoyed new prestige and greater development, so that chronicles became less barren and historical testimonies more abundant. Thus it is known that Bishop Peter (834) built the church of St John the Baptist; that under Bishop Landemarius (872) the church of St Maximus was constructed; and that Bernard (909) erected among other things the bell tower of the church of St John. Another prelate of the same name transferred in 954 from Porto to Salerno the relics of St Matthew, patron of the city.
The last of the bishops and first of the archbishops was Amatus (981), under whom in 984 Benedict VII raised Salerno to metropolitan status with jurisdiction first over Acerno and Campagna, then over Satriano, Capaccio, Paestum and later the other current dioceses. His successor Daufarius (991) witnessed the devastation of the monastery of St Benedict by the Saracens; Grimoaldus (993) obtained from John XVI the protection and safeguarding of the Holy See; Benedict (1016) received the privilege of the pallium. From these early archbishops begins that feudal power of the Church of Salerno which, far from being damaged by the Norman conquest by Robert Guiscard (1075), instead became in the 13th century the greatest fiefdom of southern Italy, second only to Palermo. In 1058 the great Alfanus ascended the see of Salerno, an excellent poet (RIS, VI, p. 34) and most noble prelate, who obtained from the Pope the faculty to appoint and consecrate eleven suffragan bishops, attended the Roman council of Nicholas II (1059) and that of Benevento, saw the cathedral built by Robert Guiscard (1079) and received the exiled Gregory VII, who rests in the fine tomb erected by the Norman duke. His successor Alfanus II had the honour of welcoming Urban II in 1093, the Pope who shortly afterwards granted Salerno primacy over Conza and Acerenza, confirmed in 1100 by Paschal II. Romuald, appointed in 1121, was cardinal of Santa Maria in Via Lata and attended the coronation of Roger I; of him is remembered the mosaic pavement of the cathedral. Another distinguished prelate was Romuald Guarneri (1153), the celebrated chronicler of the age who negotiated the peace between Adrian IV and William I, hosted Alexander III (1165) and played a leading role in the peace negotiations between the Pope and Frederick Barbarossa. At the death of Nicholas d’Ajello (1221), who with his brother had suffered imprisonment in Germany at the hands of Henry VI and with him had been freed by Philip of Swabia at the prayers of Celestine III and Innocent III, Pope Honorius III, disregarding the rights of the Chapter, directly appointed Caesar d’Alagno of Amalfi, to whom the Salernitan clergy had previously denied the canonicate. But Frederick II did not recognise this election and made known that he would prevent the new prelate’s entry into the diocese. For five years, because of this dispute, the see was vacant; and when the newly elected prelate was finally able to enter the diocese, it is said he exclaimed: “Quem noluitis in fratrem, habetis in pastorem.” This was the gravest episode that shattered the ancient traditions in the appointment of prelates, so that when in 1263 Matthew della Porta, friend of St Thomas Aquinas, was elected, Manfredi’s opposition forced the postponement of his consecration.
This state of affairs induced Boniface VIII to abolish capitular election, reserving the right to the Holy See. Indeed, after the death of Philip Capuana (1208), he appointed the Provençal William of Godorio as archbishop, inaugurating the series of French prelates who occupied the Salernitan see. An attempt by the Chapter to regain the lost privilege did not find the necessary agreement, and Clement V was still able to avail himself of the new prerogative. Thus, with the disappearance of that custom, the Church of Salerno suddenly lost its high prestige and began a slow decline, interrupted only by the golden age of the Sanseverino. Not a few illustrious men, including some cardinals, adorned the Salernitan see. Among them may be recalled John of Aragon, a prince of the Spanish house (1472), and Cardinal Marco d’Ostos, a Spaniard (1692), reformer of the clergy and restorer of numerous city buildings.
In 1818 Pius VII, with the bull De utiliori, limited the suffragans of Salerno to the dioceses of Capaccio, Policastro, Marsico Nuovo, Nocera dei Pagani and Nusco, and at the same time appointed the archbishop of Salerno perpetual administrator of the cathedral of Acerno.
For the regional council, V. LUCANIA.
MONUMENTS. – The cathedral, built by Robert Guiscard (1079-84) and dedicated to Santa Maria degli Angeli, was consecrated by Pope Gregory VII. Constructed on the site of the ancient duomo, it was completely transformed by the 18th-century restorations of Archbishop Bonaventura Poerio and Paolo de Vilhama Perlas, and then partially restored during the major works carried out in the first three decades of the present century. It consists of an atrium, the upper church and the crypt. The atrium, beside which stands the little church of San Lazzaro—once the hall of the famous medical school—preserves the fine portal with two seated lions at the foot of the jambs. The architrave, commissioned by Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino, bears the commemorative inscription of the peace concluded between Robert and Jordan of Capua. Inside, 28 classical columns support the arches of the portico, at the centre of which once stood the great monolithic basin now adorning a fountain in the Villa Nazionale in Naples. Various Roman and Christian sarcophagi are arranged beneath the portico, some reused for the burial of illustrious men. To the right of the entrance still remains the chapel of San Bernardino, the hall in which St Thomas Aquinas taught philosophy and theology.
From the atrium one enters the church through three doorways. The central one, original in design, has richly adorned doorposts and lintel;
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SALERNO - SALERNO GIOVANNI BATTISTA
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the lunette, with its black-and-white chromatic effects, preserves a blessing Christ from the school of Montecassino (11th century). The bronze doors, cast in Constantinople (1099) at the commission of Gisana and Landolfo Butromile, “protocatapani,” have five panels, once covered with silver. The interior of the cathedral has lost much of its ancient splendor; hidden in recent restorations are some of the twenty-two granite monoliths, taken from the demolition of early Christian buildings; likewise disappeared is the museum of Archbishop Alfano which adorned the transept. The church is one of the most interesting Norman constructions; asymmetrical in its iconography, it has an oblique presbytery with respect to the central axis, while the irregular floor rises from the entrance toward the transept. On the inner side of the façade remains a fine mosaic by the Cassinese school depicting St. Matthew; near the presbytery is the magnificent Easter candelabrum and the two superb twelfth-century ambos (the right-hand one a gift of the d’Aiello brothers, respectively archbishop and chancellor of the Kingdom of Apulia and Sicily; the other from Archbishop Romualdo II Guarana). Siculo-Roman art created a masterpiece in the d’Aiello ambo. Twelve columns of red and gray granite support the light structure, entirely inlaid; the lectern is upheld by an eagle clutching a sinner bitten by a serpent and resting on a lion that bars a bull. The pulpit to the left, however, elegant and slender on its four columns, adheres more closely to the canons of the Roman school; noteworthy are the capitals and the symbols of the Evangelists in the spandrels of the front and right side. Another mosaic decoration with large marble mirrors adorns the iconostasis of Matteo d’Aiello; the presbytery floor, too, is a museum piece, the work of Cardinal Romualdo I Guarana. Of great interest is the sixteenth-century wooden choir, the fifteenth-century organ, and the Baroque cantoria. At the end of the apse, the throne of Gregory VII has been brought to light, together with remains of ancient mosaics depicting apostles.
The right apse, formerly the chapel of the Crusades or of Gregory VII, contains the tomb of the exiled Pope who died there in 1085. The mosaics of the apse, with figures of saints on a golden background, commissioned by Giovanni da Procida (c. 1260), show clear influences from the mosaics of Palermo, Cefalù, and Monreale. The walls are also frescoed (to the left, The Granting of the Cardinal’s Red Hat to the Salerno Chapter; to the right, The Arrival of Gregory VII in Salerno). Noteworthy are the tomb of Cardinal Carafa (1668), with at its base a fine Greek bas-relief of The Rape of Proserpina; that of Archbishop Paglia, in neoclassical style (1854); a modern throne; the seventeenth-century pulpit on four spiral columns; and the Baroque monument to Archbishop Sanchez de Luna (1771). In the other apse is preserved, in part, an eleventh-century mosaic depicting the Baptism of Christ; and on the walls, two frescoes perhaps by Solimena. Numerous are the funerary monuments, some of them fine in the transept and side aisles, as well as a large canvas by Luca Giordano (Madonna and Child with Sts. Anthony and Lawrence) and an Assumption of the Virgin. Beneath the church, the large three-aisled crypt, richly adorned with polychrome marbles by Domenico Fontana and his son (early 17th century), preserves the body of the Evangelist St. Matthew, brought here in 954 by Justin I. The central apse houses a spiral column said, according to legend, to be the site of the decapitation of the three Salernitan martyrs Caius, Antes, and Fortunatus.
Finally, mention should be made of the museum attached to the cathedral, which preserves a precious treasury of relics, liturgical vestments, and precious objects. Among these are the famous “Exultet,” a remarkable twelfth-century ivory antependium with fifty-four bas-reliefs depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments, and various illuminated codices of the same period.
Other medieval constructions are the churches of the Holy Cross (c. 10th century) and St. Dominic, with its superb cloister of Arab inspiration, like the cathedral of Amalfi.