SCOPIA (SKOPLJE, USKUB), Diocese of. — Immediately subject to the Holy See, and situated in southern Yugoslavia between Albania, Greece, and Bulgaria.
An extremely ancient diocese, already represented at the Council of Sardica (343) and in the 5th century the metropolitan see of Dardania. Justinian rebuilt the city, destroyed by an earthquake in 518, under the name of Justiniana Prima, which Pope Vigilius raised to the status of an independent archdiocese. After the incursions of the Slavs, in 1020 Scopia was incorporated into the confederation of Acrida, thus becoming schismatic. Under Kalojan, king of Bulgaria, it was briefly united with Rome (1024). In 1246 it was annexed to the Serbian schismatic church and from 1364 it was subject to the patriarchate of Ipek. At present it is also a Serbian Orthodox metropolitan see.
During the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries the Latin bishops of Scopia, recorded in official documents, were all titular bishops, i.e., in partibus infidelium, and none took possession of the see. From 1656 Latin bishops began to reside there. The Latin diocese of Scopia was an archdiocese from 1701 to 1921. After a brief vacancy in 1924 following the Concordat between the
Scopia, ruins of — View of Priaren, the bishop’s residence.
SCOVIA — SCOTISM
Michel). In Italy, however, the first pictorial and sculptural evidence dates from the 14th century and comes from the Sienese artistic milieu (cf. the Sienese illuminated Bible, Bibliothèque nationale de Paris, ms. franc. 9561; Barna at S. Gimignano). Spread throughout central Italy and used, for example, by Fra Angelico (Florence; Perugia), Donatello (Florence), Paolo Uccello (Urbino), Niccolò da Bologna (Vatican Library), etc., this new symbol then passed into northern Italy, where it was employed by Giacomo Jaquenio (Ranverso), Luini (Milan), Gaudenzio Ferrari (Varallo), Giovanni Boccali (Venice), etc., in France and Germany. However, as it moved farther from its place of origin, it lost its original meaning and disappeared by the 16th century. The scorpion is a symbol of the Jewish people, especially when depicted: 1) on the generally yellow banner of the synagogue, conquered and rejected by Christ, in scenes of Altercations between Church and Synagogue or in the “Living Crosses”; 2) on banners, garments, or shields of the soldiers in scenes of the Passion of Christ. In these scenes the scorpion is paired with the letters S.P.Q.R., or with the eagle, to indicate the presence and responsibility of the two deicidal peoples, the Jews and the Romans.
In Italian and French monuments from the late 14th to the 16th century, the scorpion is also depicted as an attribute of dialectic or logic, in place of the serpent (cf., for example, Andrea Bonaiuti, S. Maria Novella, Florence; Botticelli, Louvre; A. Pollaiolo, tomb of Sixtus IV in the grottoes of the basilica of St. Peter, etc.). — See pl. V. BIBLICA.: M. Bulard, Le scorpion symbole du peuple juif dans l'art religieux des XIVe, XVe, XVIe siècles, Paris 1935; A. P. Frutaz, Lo scorpione simbolo di un popolo, in Amici delle catacombe, 5 (1935), pp. 6-13.