Susa, Diocese of

SUSA, Diocese of. - City and diocese of Piedmont, in the valley of the same name, in the province of Turin.

The present diocese comprises the entire territory of the valley of S. and has 51,800 inhabitants, of whom 51,200 are Catholics distributed in 62 parishes, served by 108 diocesan priests and 8 regulars; it has 4 male religious communities and 4 female.

It is the ancient "Segusium," seat of King Donnus, contemporary and friend of Caesar and ally of the Romans, who recognized his royal rank and authority. When Italy was divided into regions by the Romans, Marcus Julius Cottius I, son of Donnus, was appointed prefect of his own region, in place of the royal title. In honor of Augustus, returning from the Gauls in the year 9 B.C., Cottius erected the magnificent triumphal arch that is still admired today. On the death of Cottius II the Segusian Kingdom was definitively annexed to the Empire and included in the province of Cisalpine Gaul (67 A.D.). At the fall of the Empire the valley of S. belonged to the Heruli, to the Goths of Theodoric, to the Greeks of Narses, to the Burgundians, until Charlemagne, having defeated the Lombards at the Cluses and at Pavia (774), restored S. to Italy. In 906 the valley of S. again suffered a terrible invasion on the part of the Saracens of Frassineto, who had descended into Italy from Mont Cenis: only in 946 were they definitively driven out of the valley of S. by Arduino Glabrione, count of Turin and, following the successful enterprise, marquis of S. The valley was thus subject to the marquises of Turin until 1406, the time when the countess Adelaide of S. married Count Otto of Savoy, son of Humbert I of Savoy, thereby uniting her possessions with those of the House of Savoy.

In 1174 Barbarossa burned S. and reduced it to a heap of rubble; risen again and flourishing, S. was still the theater of the wars between the French and the Spaniards (1536-1707) and long bore all their painful consequences. After Marengo, S. became the seat of a subprefecture and matters remained so until the Treaty of Paris of 30 May 1814, by which the Kings of Savoy entered into possession of their mainland domains.

The diocese of S. was erected on 3 Aug. 1772 by Clement XIV with the bull Quod nobis, detaching it from Turin (v.). Pius VII was then forced to suppress it with the bull Gravissimis of 17 Aug. 1805, uniting it again to Turin, but, times having changed, he restored it with the other bull Cunctis ubique of 17 July 1817. First bishop of S. was Msgr. Giuseppe M. Ferraris of the counts of Genola, who had the episcopal palace built at his own expense; the cause for beatification is in progress of the bishop Msgr. Edoardo Rosaz, the apostle of the poor and of abandoned childhood: he founded the congregation of the Tertiary Sisters of St. Francis.

Among the famous figures native to the Susa Valley are to be numbered Cardinal Enrico De Bartolomei, the poet Norberto Rosa, Senator Luigi Des Ambros, minister of Charles Albert and of Victor Emmanuel II, General Michele Bes, the architect Meano.

S. possesses an interesting cathedral dedicated to St. Justus Martyr, patron of the diocese, caused to be erected in 1011 by Olderico Manfredi II, marquis of S., and by his wife Berta and originally established as an independent abbey; the collegiate church of St. Justus was later erected into a cathedral by Pope Clement XIV with a bull of the year 1772. A precious ornament of the cathedral of St. Justus is the triptych of the Madonna of Rocciamelone, a bronze triptych of 1358; and to the Madonna of Rocciamelone is also dedicated the famous Sanctuary erected on the mountain of the same name at 3537 m. The church of St. John at Salbertrand it has a portal of the type in use in the Dauphiné. Among the most ancient monasteries it counts: the abbey of Novalesa (v.) and the abbey of the Sagra di S. Michele (v.). - See plate CVII.

Guido Ferrero