TADINO (GUALDO). — Tadinum was a Roman city on the Flaminian Way, in Umbria, completely destroyed in the tenth century; from its ruins, farther north at the foot of the mountain, present-day Gualdo T. was built.
It was an episcopal see at least as early as the fifth century. In July 599 Pope St. Gregory wrote two letters, one to Gaudioso, bishop of Gubbio, and the other to the clergy and people of T., which had been «di sacerdoti propri regimine destitutum», so that a new bishop might be elected there (cf. Jaffé-Wattenbach, nos. 1712–13). According to tradition, Bishop St. Facondino was elected at that time. The Legenda di s. Facondino, however, now preserved in two different versions (the older one in cod. Vat. lat. 7853, from the end of the thirteenth century, and the slightly more recent one, among others, in cod. Vat. lat. 3921, from which the Bollandists transcribed it for the Acta SS. Augusti, VI, Paris 1868, p. 471 ff.), contains no chronological reference. F. Lanzoni has therefore put forward the hypothesis that Bishop Facondino of T. should be identified with the Facundinus mentioned by St. Athanasius (cf. PG 25, 340) among the fifteen Italian bishops who, although they did not attend in person, approved the Council of Sardica in the year 342. The bishop Gaudenzio who was present at the Roman Council of 499 should probably also be attributed to T., since the most reliable reading of the manuscripts is: «Gaudentius episcopus Ecclesiae Tadinensis».
With the destruction of the city on the plain, the episcopal see also disappeared, and its territory was annexed in 1006 to the neighboring see of Nocera. The principal church of Gualdo T., the abbey church of S. Benedetto, was erected as a collegiate church on 26 May 1847 and as a cathedral «honoris tantum causa» by decree of the S. Congr. Concistoriale of 2 January 1915, under the new designation Nocera Umbra (v.) and Gualdo T. The protector of the city is Bl. Angelo, a Camaldolese hermit of the fourteenth century.