SARSINA, Diocese of. - City and diocese in the province of Forlì; suffragan of Ravenna, in Romagna. It has an area of 620 sq km and a population of 26,000 inhabitants, all Catholics, with 52 parishes, distributed among 8 vicariates, 62 diocesan priests and 11 houses of women religious with 44 professed (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 369).
S. is remembered among the cities of ancient Umbria; occupied by the Romans in 266 B.C., it preserved a certain autonomy and very probably belonged to the number of the confederate cities; having become a "municipium," it was assigned to the "Pupinia" tribe; the municipium was presided over by the "quattuorviri iure dicundo"; it was of valuable aid to the Romans by supplying arms and soldiers in abundance, especially in the battles against the Gauls in 225 B.C. (Polybius, II,
24) and against Hannibal at Cannae in 216 B.C. (Silius Italicus, X, 250-59). In 254 B.C. St. Plautus was born at S.; the main square of the city is dedicated to him.
From various indications it seems that the Christian religion was brought there by the immediate disciples of St. Apollinaris, toward the end of the 2nd century. The first bishop of whom there is record is St. Vinicius, who governed the diocese at the beginning of the 300s. In the centuries of transition from Roman to feudal rule the territory of S. took the name of Bobbio, an appellation which among some historians would be a cause of confusion with the homonymous Lombard diocese, a suffragan of Genoa, erected in 1014. While Narses governed Italy in the name of the Eastern Emperor (553-67), the county of Bobbio was created and the bishop was invested with it. During the Avignon captivity S. was occupied by Neri della Fagiuola, in 1386 by Pino and Cecco Ordelaffi; in 1406 it was given in fief to the Malatesta of Cesena; usurped by Cesare Borgia, it was restored by the Venetians to Julius II; in 1519 it was given to Alberto Pio, lord of Carpi, then to the Aldobrandini family and then to the Doria-Pamphily; in 1860 it passed definitively to the Kingdom of Italy. The diocese, for several centuries very extensive, underwent, especially in recent times, various restrictions; many parishes were taken from it on several occasions, after the erection of the diocese of Borgo San Sepolcro (1515). In 1824 it was united by Leo XII to the diocese of Bertinoro, and in 1850 another 17 parishes were detached to form the new diocese of Modigliana. Pius IX then in 1853 ordered the separation of S. from Bertinoro, and Pius X in 1908 restored the 17 parishes that had been attached to Modigliana.
Among the bishops, besides St. Vinicius, those deserving of mention are: Benno (770-815), to whom the construction of the present Cathedral is attributed; Uberto I (1025-50), who obtained various privileges and grants of land from the emperor Conrad II; Alberico (1176-1221), who held many possessions from the emperor Frederick II; Carlo Bovio (1635-1646), to whom the first construction of the Seminary (1643) is due; Gian Battista Braschi (1699-1718), a man of profound and vast culture.
In S. there is an archaeological Museum which is without doubt among the most important in the region; it preserves remains from the pre-Roman and Roman periods. From recent excavations (1927-29), moreover, in a very nearby locality (Pian di Bezzo), where a Roman necropolis was found, several mausoleums with a curvilinear pyramidal cusp have come to light in excellent condition, a discovery of national interest, since in the entire territory of the peninsula this type of Roman architecture has been preserved only at S., if one excepts Aquileia, where numerous sepulchral cippi had already long since been brought to light, though of small dimensions, with a crowning in the form of a curvilinear pyramid cusp. One of these mausoleums, erected to the memory of "Aulus Murcius Obulaceus," has been reassembled in the open air on a fine terrace at the entrance to the city; it consists of three structural bodies: a base, a central prostyle distyle aedicula, and a pyramidal cusp with curved edges; the whole reaches a height of about 9 m. Also interesting is the Cathedral with three naves in Romanesque-Byzantine style of the end of the 8th century, which, though modified several times internally, nonetheless shows its original structure externally. It preserves a portion of an ambo, a valuable work of Romanesque sculpture, as well as other sculptures and paintings of various periods.
The episcopal archive, rich in precious documents and manuscripts, once kept in the fortress of Ciola, has suffered damage several times, especially in the 16th century and most recently in 1944, as a result of the fury of the weapons of war; the town itself, more than half burned down by enemy reprisal, was among the most tried of the "Gothic Line." Almost as if to recall and give value to these painful events, the "Opera di carità Linea Gotica" arose in S., an initiative of charity and suffrage canonically erected as a foundation of worship on 4 Nov. 1948 and recognized by the State as a moral entity on 31 Aug. 1951.
Among the sanctuaries, mention should be made of a chapel of the Cathedral dedicated to St. Vicinius, the first bishop, venerated as patron of the diocese; here are preserved the mortal remains of the Saint and the so-called "chain of St. Vicinius," his instrument of penance.
Various monasteries, governed by the Camaldolese, once flourished in the diocese: among these are to be remembered that of San Salvatore in Summano, united in perpetuity by St. Pius V to the episcopal mensa; that of Sant'Ambrogio di Ranchio; that of San Giovanni "inter ambas Para" (that is, between the two streams Para), also called "Cella di S. Alberico," from the hermitage of the Saint; that of Santa Maria in Trivio. - See pl. CXXVIII.
Bibliography17 works
Corrado Balducci