SENIGALLIA, DIOCESE of. – City and diocese of the Marches. It has an area of 533 sq. km, with a population of 110,000 inhabitants, of whom 109,919 are Catholics, distributed among 49 parishes, 45 of them in the province of Ancona and 4 in that of Pesaro; it has 118 diocesan priests and 51 religious priests; it has one seminary, 13 male and 43 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1952, pp. 374–75).
The diocese originated no later than the 4th century and was confined solely to the territory of the Roman municipium of Sena, the ancient capital of the Senonian Gauls, which became a Roman colony in 283 BC. The first historical bishop is Venantius, present at the Palmare Synod of Rome in 502 together with Martinianus, bishop of the neighboring diocese of Ostra. The barbarian invasions brought about the destruction of Sena and Ostra, as well as of the two other Roman localities contained within the present diocesan territory: Suasa and Pitulo (Piticchio). S., however, was able to rise again under the Byzantines and to extend the diocesan territory to that of the vanished Ostra. Many abbeys contributed at that time to the ecclesiastical organization, but they declined around the year 1000. The oldest, the abbey of S. Gaudenzio, took its name from the Saint whom legend identifies with the bishop of Rimini; only ruins and the Saint’s sarcophagus remain of it, a fine example of Ravenna art, preserved in the Cathedral. The abbey of S. Maria in Castagnola at Chiaravalle, the only surviving abbey, situated near the Roman locality of Sestia, passed to the Cistercian monks in 1147. After the year 1000, while flourishing communes arose throughout the territory, the city of S. declined so greatly that Bishop Giovanni II (1328–1349) requested and obtained permission to transfer his residence to Corinaldo. Sigismondo Malatesta initiated the city’s revival, after which it achieved great splendor in the 16th and 17th centuries under the Della Rovere family, and reached its greatest development in the 18th century under the popes, thanks to the great fair, of European renown.
(da Marche, T.C.I., Milano 1953, fig. 167)
SENIGALLIA, DIOCESE of – Cloister of the church of S. Maria delle Grazie, built according to a design by Baccio Pontelli (1491) – Surroundings of S.
Among the best-known bishops are: the Augustinian theologian Antonio Colomella (1447–66); Cardinal Marco Vigerio I Della Rovere (1476–1513), president of the Fourth Lateran Council; the Conventual writer Pietro Ridolfi (1591–1601); and Cardinal Annibale Della Genga (1816–18), later Pope Leo XII. Born in S. were the great patron Cardinal Cinzio Passeri Aldobrandini; the commander-in-chief of the Holy League against Charles V, Francesco Maria Della Rovere, Duke of Urbino; Count Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti, later Pope Pius IX; and the poet and Dante scholar Andrea Marchetti. In the diocesan territory, at Corinaldo in 1890, was born the martyr of purity, s. Maria Goretti (v.).
Among the most noteworthy religious monuments, besides the sarcophagus of s. Gaudenzio, are the ancient church of S. Gervasio, the abbey of Chiaravalle, the convent of the Grazie near S., the church of the Croce at S., and the collegiate church of S. Medardo in Arcevia.
BIBLI: L. Siena, Stor. della città di S., Senigallia 1756; P. F. Kehr, Italia Pontificia, V. Berlino 1911, pp. 192–93; T. Cucchi, Cronologia dei vesc. della S. Chiesa Senigalliese, ivi 1931; P. Cucchi, Il passato e l'avvenire di S., ivi 1931; A. Mancini, Studi e saggi di storia medievale, ivi 1943; Eubel, I, pp. 446–47; II, p. 259; III, p. 316; IV, p. 312. Alberto Polverari