TANJORE, DIOCESE OF. — Located in south-eastern India.
By decree of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide dated 13 November 1952, the diocese of Saint Thomas of Meliapore, which, by the agreement between the Holy See and Portugal of 18 July 1950, ceased to be part of the Portuguese patronage and passed under the jurisdiction of Propaganda, and the archdiocese of Madras were limited to the territory within the civil district of Chingleput and united to form a single archdiocese of Madras-Meliapore, while the parts of the territory of the two aforementioned ecclesiastical circumscriptions situated outside the district of Chingleput were erected respectively into the dioceses of Vellore and of Tanjore.
TANNOCI, Alfonso. — Born at Deliceto (Foggia) on 27 September 1727; died there on 12 March 1808.
He followed Saint Alphonsus and became professed in his Congregation in 1747. Rector, general consultor, he distinguished himself as master of novices, for whom he composed spiritual exercises still in use, and as a diligent and careful historian.
The Memorie istorico-critiche della vita, miracoli e traslazione del b. Benvenuto da Gubbio (2 vols., Naples 1780); Vita del canonico G. Della Monica (ibid. 1787); and Vita del servo di Dio Fr. Gerardo Maiella (ibid. 1804) retain their value. Of capital importance are the three volumes of the Vita ed Istituto del ven. Alfonso de Liguori (ibid. 1798-1803), completed by Fr. C. Berruti with the addition of the first volume, drawn up largely from material prepared by Tannoci himself (ibid. 1857) and later altered by A. Chiletti in the Turin edition of 1869. He also published a voluminous work on Le api e loro utile e della maniera di ben governare (ibid. 1798-1801), for which he was named a member of the Georgofila Academy of Florence and received praise from the National Institute of Bologna. Unpublished manuscripts by him, illustrating the origins of the Institute and its early members, remain in the General Archives of the Redemptorists.