SAN SEPOLCRO, DIOCESI di. — In Tuscany, in the province of Arezzo. The diocese of Borgo S. S. covers an area of 2,160 sq km and has a population of 60,000 inhabitants, of whom 54,600 are Catholics, distributed among 136 parishes served by 102 diocesan priests and 18 religious priests; it has one seminary, 6 male and 22 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 360).
A privilege of Benedict VIII, dated 1013 and granted to the monastery of S. S., constitutes the first historical record concerning the origin of the church and town of Borgo S. S. The monastery was undoubtedly founded toward the end of the 10th century or at the beginning of the 11th, above the oratory of S. Leonardo, erected in 934 by the pilgrims Arcano and Egidio on their return from Jerusalem, whence they had brought relics of the Holy Sepulchre. Initially possessed by the monks of S. Benedetto, it passed to the Camaldolese in the following century and gave rise to the formation of a characteristic and prosperous borough around II. Monastery and borough were under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Città di Castello, with whom they long and tenaciously struggled for freedom, until Leo X created the diocese there on 2 September 1515, appointing as its first bishop the abbot Galeotto de Gratianis and endowing it with the lands and possessions of numerous abbeys, among which the distinguished abbey of S. Bartolomeo de Subcastello (Badia di Succastelli). Since that time it has been a suffragan diocese of Florence. Among the bishops of S. S. worthy of mention are: N. Tornabuoni (1560), theologian and controversialist; D. Bussotti (1638), former superior general of the Servites and theologian; G. L. Tilli (1704), founder of the Seminary.
Among the town’s sacred monuments, the Cathedral should be mentioned, with its ancient façade, although it underwent continuous rebuilding from the 12th century onward; S. Francesco, from the 13th century, notable for its altar and choir, which are of great artistic value. The archive of the ancient abbey was destroyed in 1353. Some of the later documents are preserved in the Archive of the Episcopal Curia.