SCALA. - Small town and ancient diocese in the province of Salerno.
The diocese was created by Pope John XV in 987 as a suffragan of Amalfi. Its first bishop was Sergius; known are Alexander I, in 1118; Orso, in 1144; Alexander II, in 1171; Celestine III, who in 1191 fixed its boundaries with the bull In Apostolicae; Constantine in 1207 and in 1227 Matthew, both of the d'Affitto family; in 1328 the Dominican Guglielmo Lombardo; in 1343 Giacomo Sersale of the same Order, as was Pietro de' Penni, who reduced the parishes of the diocese from 30 to 18; in 1418 Natale d'Affitto; in 1465 Matteo De Dote; in 1500 Giacomo Pisanello; in 1511 the Spaniard Ferdinando Di Castro, who resigned in the same year and was replaced by the Spaniard B. Del Rio, later in 1530 governor of Rome; in 1541 Lodovico Vannini Teodoli, later bishop of Bertinoro; in 1552 the Augustinian Costantino Veltrano, later bishop of Cortona; in 1577 the Dominican Feliciano Niguarda; in 1583 Francesco D'Affitto; in 1598 Francesco Benni, who on 3 July 1603 also became bishop of Ravello, since on that date Pope Clement VIII united the diocese of S. with that of Ravello, keeping it however a suffragan of Amalfi. Pius VII in 1818 suppressed the two dioceses, uniting them with Amalfi. At S. St. Alphonsus Liguori opened the first house of his Congregation (1732).
The ancient Cathedral dedicated to St. Lawrence was rebuilt in the 15th century and completed in 1598; it has three naves with three terminal apses disfigured in the 17th century and a crypt of the 12th century; artistic is the pulpit decorated with columns, marbles and mosaics. The portal is Romanesque. In the Treasury one admires a 13th-century mitre, a 14th-century chalice and precious reliquaries.
Bibliography4 works
Enrico Josi