SAN SEVERO. – Diocese and city in the province of Foggia. It has an area of approximately 706 km², with a population of 79,607 inhabitants, of whom 79,208 are Catholic, distributed across 13 parishes served by 56 diocesan priests and 18 regular clergy; it has a Seminary, 3 male religious communities and 7 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 361). It is a suffragan of Benevento; the Cathedral is dedicated to the Assumption.
History. – The diocese of S. S., which arose in recent times, continues the ancient see of Civitate, the Apulian Teanum located ten kilometers beyond the bridge over the Frentone. The first notice of this earlier diocese dates to the 11th century, but it almost certainly existed at least a century earlier. In 1062, Amelgerio subscribed to the provincial synod held at Benevento by Archbishop Uldarico and occupied the first place. The importance of the Civitate bishop reflects the authority that the town itself increasingly gained under the Normans, also thanks to the prestige conferred by its selection as the capital of Capitanata in the Council of Melfi and by its remaining such until the reign of William II. Of Amelgerio’s successors, it is known that Ruggero attended the provincial council of S. Milone (1073), Landolfo that of Melfi celebrated by Urban II (1092), and Robert the Lateran Council in 1179. Upon the death of Bishop Giacomo Caracciolo (1425–39), Civitate was united by Eugenius IV to Lucera, but shortly afterward Sixtus IV restored its independence by appointing Nicholas in 1478. Despite this recognition, the city’s conditions were and became ever more precarious. Abandoned by its inhabitants, some of whom had emigrated to the new Manfredonia, others having fled during the harsh hegemony of the Carafa of Naples and the bloody wars, it fell into desolation and misery. In 1580 Gregory XIII, who had been bishop of nearby Vieste and was evidently aware of the wretched state of the city, by a bull of 9 March transferred the see to S. S. with all its privileges.
Before being elevated to an episcopal see, S. S. was a flourishing market under the Normans and a possession of the Benedictines of Torremaggiore and the Templars. The first Sanseverese bishop was in 1581 Martino de Martinis of Aquila, translated from Fano. His successor Germano Malaspina of Liguria (1583), later nuncio of Clement VIII to Poland, obtained from Sixtus V that the perpetual beneficiaries of the Chapter be increased to four. Among others, Fabrizio Varallo (1606), who, elected cardinal, resigned in 1615 and was succeeded by Vincenzo Caputo of Ruvo; and Francesco Venturi (1625), already referendary of the Segnatura and highly esteemed by Gregory XV, who withdrew to Florence as archdeacon of the metropolitan see because of conflicts and enmities. Carlo Felice de Matta of Cremona (1678) reformed the clergy, built the Seminary and the Episcopal Palace in the locality of S. Paolo, and began that work of defending the rights and privileges of his Church, vigorously continued by his successor Carlo Franco Giocchi of S. Arcangelo (1703), a most deserving prelate for having favored religious orders and undertaken major restoration and embellishment works at the episcopal residence, the Seminary, and the Cathedral. Transferred to Capaccio in 1717 by Clement IX, he was succeeded by the Augustinian prior Adeodato Summantico of Foggia, a man of rigid character, who, besides various works of public utility, is remembered for the Synod of 1720, in which he eliminated many long-standing abuses, though these were to recur for a long time afterward. It should finally be noted that the hypothesis advanced by some regarding the union with S. S. of the archpriestship of Dragonara is purely conjectural, there being no document or fact that would even allow one to suppose II.
Monuments. – The rebirth of S. S. after the terrible trials suffered at the hands of nature and men is admirable: destroyed by Frederick II and almost razed by the earthquake of 1627, further tremors in 1638 and 1688 caused serious damage to the rebuilt buildings, until in 1799 it suffered another terrible destruction in the sack by the French. For this reason, the sacred buildings are all modern, and little remains of the ancient. The Cathedral preserves nothing of its medieval origins, when it was a simple parish church under the title of S. Maria della Strada. Originally a single nave, it acquired the two side aisles in 1583, after the transfer of the Civitate see. The coeval church of S. Severino, however, has preserved its Romanesque façade on the right side, with the ornate archivolted portal and the fine rose window surmounted by a stone triptych, and the ancient biforas set into the lower part of the bell tower. Also worthy of note are the Baroque façade of the church of S. Lorenzo or delle Benedettine (1712) and the graceful interior of S. Nicola, erected between 1750 and 1779.