LUNI (La Spezia), Sarzana and Brugnato, Diocese of. - Dioceses united in Liguria.
Out of a total of 245,266 inhabitants, there are 243,000 Catholics, distributed in 150 parishes, served by 216 diocesan priests and 83 regulars; one seminary, 15 male religious communities and 79 female (Annuario Pontificio, 1951, p. 257).
The origins of L. are uncertain. According to Livy, a Roman colony of 2,000 citizens was transferred there in 177 B.C. The importance of the place is evident from Ennius's mention: «Lunai portu est operae cognoscere cives». The city flourished after the victory of Claudius Marcellus over the Ligurian Apuani, Velleiates and Friniates; the quarrying of Carrara marble, begun in the 1st century B.C., increased its fortune. The curia, the forum and the basilica were established; the municipal magistracies and an amphitheater were in operation. In the 5th century A.D., Rutilius Namatianus still greets it as a dazzling vision. During the barbarian invasions, thanks to the protection of the Eastern fleet, which had a permanent base in Sardinia, L. became the maritima provincia Italorum, linked by frequent maritime relations with Rome and Byzantium. At the beginning of the 8th century L. capitulated under Liutprand and was annexed to the Lombard duchy of Lucca. At the descent of the Franks it had no different fate, until it was attacked by the Saracens in 849 and by the Normans in 860.
Christianity was preached at L. in the earliest times, without its being known who the first bishop was; in 465 the bishop of Luni, St. Felix, subscribed to the Roman Council. Other known bishops are: Victor (499-503), Justus (556), St. Venantius (594-603) remembered in the epistolary of St. Gregory the Great; Thomas, present at the Lateran Council of 649, and Severus at that of 680. A Luni Martyrology lists bishops whose figures are confused with legend, such as St. Solarus, St. Terentius, St. Ceccardus, etc. The Christian life of L. manifests itself with the cathedral of S. Maria and with pleban churches in territories where pagan worship resisted until the 8th century, and with the erection of abbeys such as those at Tino, Brugnato, Aulla, Linari, etc. After the collapse of the march and the Comitatus, the figure of the bishop asserted itself decisively against the encroaching Obertenghi dynasties, obtaining already in 900 from Berengar, in 963 from Otto I and in 981 from Otto II, immunity over the richest zone of Lunigiana. Thus begins the temporal power of the bishop, to whom comital sovereignty is recognized in the territory of Lunigiana, totum in integrum, long before receiving the official investiture (1185) from Frederick I. The bishop is in fact and by right the count of Lunigiana with the faculty of minting coins, and the Liber Iurium of the Church of Luni, the famous Codex Pelavicinus, has collected its acts from 900 to 1297. His jurisdiction extends over the islands of Capraia and Gorgona, Palmaria and Tino, with their famous monasteries; into the three valleys of the Magra, the Vara and the Frigido, along the entire southern slope of the Apennines, pushing its offshoots beyond them; to the north into the valleys of the Parma and the Taro, and to the east into the valley of the Serchio and almost as far as Pietrasanta.
Probably after the Saracen incursion at the beginning of the millennium, the bishops placed their seat at Ameglia, at Carrara and at Sarzanello, until in 1204 the bishop Gualtieri transferred the Cathedral to Sarzana, which however would obtain pontifical recognition as the definitive episcopal seat only in 1465 from Paul II. But already in the 16th century, the autonomy of Lunigiana was disappearing: and Dante Alighieri himself, peacemaker between the Malaspina of the Spino Secco and the bishop Antonio di Camilla, marks its decline, at Castelnuovo Magra, on 6 October 1306. The spiritual authority too was circumscribed: after the islands of Capraia and Gorgona, which passed to the diocese of Pisa in 1133, Innocent II, while immediately recognizing the diocese of L. as subject to the Apostolic See, took from it the abbey of Tino to aggregate it to the new archdiocese of Genoa, and constituted as an autonomous diocese, with its vast possessions, the abbey of S. Colombano di Brugnato. Finally Alexander III, in 1161, also withdrew the zone of Portovenere, in the gulf of La Spezia, to unite it with the possessions of Genoa.
The series of warrior bishops ends with Gabriele Malaspina, who in 1355 obtains from Charles IV the useless recognition of his ancient privileges and the title of Prince of the Empire. He is succeeded by Dominican and Franciscan bishops. But the diocese had its most radiant glory in Tomaso Parentucelli, later Nicholas V, who, a native of Sarzana, consented that the diocese should unite the name of Sarzana with that of L. and incorporated into the Chapter of the city the possessions of the abbey of Corvo, at the mouths of the Magra, and of the Augustinians of Vezzano Ligure. His relatives adorned the recent Cathedral with sovereign munificence and built the episcopal palace, leaving the imprint of the most generous liberality.
In 1545 Simone Pasqua, bishop of L.-Sarzana, is present at the Council of Trent and begins the series of cardinal bishops (1561-65). He is followed by Cardinal Benedetto Lomellini (1565-72) and, after the bishops G. B. Bracelli, distinguished prelate and diplomat of the Curia (1575-89) and G. B. Salvago (1590-1632), founder of the diocesan Seminary, by the cardinal bishop G. D. Spinola (1632-36). Other eminent figures of the diocese at that time are the two Cardinals Zacchia (Emilio, d. 1605 and Ludovico, d. 1637), Mons. Favoriti Agostino, Secretary of State to four pontiffs (d. 1682) and Cardinal Lorenzo Casoni.
The see of Brugnato too had a period of prosperity in the 16th century, owing above all to the bishop Filippo Sauli (1512-28), who arranged with the archbishop of Genoa, as per the bull of Leo X (1518), the exchange of certain parishes, so as to obtain the coastal zone of Sestri Levante; he revived the cathedral Chapter, founding six canonries, and marked the renewal of spiritual life in the diocese. He was succeeded as administrators by Cardinal Grimaldi (1528), Cardinal Trivulzio (1535) and the bishop Antonio di Cogorno who took part in the Council of Trent. Subsequently, because of political events, the sense of Lunigianese unity became ever more disintegrated; the region was governed with varying fortunes by the Genoese, the Sforza, the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Modena, and the new political hegemonies gave rise to new diocesan circumscriptions. Pius VI, in 1787, with the bull In suprema, created the diocese of Pontremoli, taking 124 parishes from that of L. and from that of Brugnato the churches of Zeri, Teglia, the vicariate of S. Pietro di Pontremoli, Gotta and Buzzò in the Val di Taro. The new diocese was declared suffragan of Pisa, to which, in 1798, it had to cede the vicariate of Serravezza. It then seemed opportune to transfer the episcopal seat of Brugnato to La Spezia, but it was the King of Sardinia himself, Victor Emmanuel I, who proposed to the Holy See the definitive union of Brugnato with Sarzana and of Noli (once governed by the bishop of Brugnato) with Savona «in view of the small populations and the scant revenues of the episcopal mensas». This took place in December 1820, by decision of Pius VII. In 1822 Pius VII, with the bull of 20 February, made Massa, included in the diocese, a new bishopric suffragan of Modena, taking 109 parishes from L. A ministerial project of 1865 even aimed at suppressing the bishopric of Sarzana.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the development of La Spezia, which in a short time had risen to the status of a great city, made it necessary to reorganize the ancient diocesan boundaries in Lunigiana. In 1923 La Spezia was declared a provincial capital and, in 1929, Pius XI, by the apostolic constitution Universi dominici gregis of 12 January 1929 (AAS, 21 [1929], pp. 144-46), recognized La Spezia as the legitimate heir of the episcopal see of L., assigning it the designation: "diocese of L., that is, La Spezia, Sarzana and Brugnato." The three cities are recognized as having the rights of episcopal sees, though under a single Pastor and a single Curia, definitively established at La Spezia, which inherits all the privileges of L. The first bishop-count elected was Msgr. Giovanni Costantini, formerly apostolic administrator and originator of the national competition for the design of the new cathedral to be dedicated to Christ the King. - See plate CXVII.
Bibliography26 works
Casimiro Bonfigli