SOLSONA, DIOCESI of. — City and diocese of Spain. It extends across the civil provinces of Lerida and Barcelona, with an area of 4,000 sq. km.; it has 200,000 inhabitants, all Catholics, and comprises 186 parishes and 426 churches; the diocesan clergy consists of 264 individuals, and the regular clergy of 110. There are 12 male religious houses, with 370 members; the female houses number 41, with 417 religious. Its bishop is Vincenzo Enrique y Tarancon, consecrated in 1946. The diocese is suffragan to Tarragona.
The diocese of S. originally formed part of the diocese of Urgel. But the region of S., situated in a very mountainous and difficult area, could not easily be visited and supervised by the bishops of Urgel; and, in order to prevent infiltrations of the Lutheran heresy, King Filippo II obtained from Pope Clemente VIII the creation of the new diocese, with its episcopal see in the city of S. The ancient and celebrated canonry of S. Maria, founded in the 10th century and recently secularized by the same Pontiff, was chosen as the cathedral of the new Chapter. The diocese was erected on 19 July 1593, and on 4 August the canon of Barcelona Luigi Sanz was appointed its first bishop.
Twenty-two bishops governed it until 1838, when, following the death of Bishop Tejada and amid the revolutions of those times, it first remained without a prelate and subsequently, under the Concordat of 1851, was suppressed and united with the diocese of Vich. Among the bishops of S., special mention should be made of Fr. Giovanni de S. Maria Alonso y Valencia, O.F.M. (1694–99), who received great distinctions from Popes Innocenzo XI, Alessandro VIII, and Innocenzo XII, and took part in the negotiations for the Peace of Ryswick; Giuseppe di Mezquia y Dias (1746–42), promoter of extensive pastoral activities; and Raffaello Lasala y Locela, O.S.A. (1773–93), of outstanding holiness and charity. During his episcopate, the exceptionally rich Archive of the ancient canonry was organized. The diocese was restored in 1891, first having the bishop of Vich as apostolic administrator and its own administrator in 1895; in 1933 it regained the title of bishop. Among the apostolic administrators, Francesco Vidal y Barraquer (1913–19), later cardinal-archbishop of Tarragona, is remembered as the founder of the « Musaeum Archaeologicum Diocesanum », with interesting collections of regional prehistory and others of medieval art.
In addition to the Cathedral, whose ogival construction preserves the apses of the 12th century, mention should be made of the church of S. Vincenzo di Cardona, from the 11th century; the small circular-plan church of S. Pietro « el Gros », from the 11th century, at Cervera; the abbey of S. Pietro di Ager, whose badly ruined church dates from the 11th century; the monastery of S. Pietro della Portella, from the 11th century; and S. Maria di Serrateix, from the 11th–12th centuries.