Tarquinia and Civitavecchia, Diocese of

TARQUINIA (formerly CORNETO TARQUINIA) and CIVITAVECCHIA, DIOCESE of. - A diocese and two small towns, the first in the province of Viterbo, the second in the province of Rome. The diocese has an area of over 595 sq km, with a population of 67,649 inhabitants, of whom 66,949 are Catholics, distributed among 14 parishes, served by 23 diocesan priests and 29 regulars, a seminary, 8 male religious communities and 16 female (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 395).

I. TARQUINIA

An ancient Etruscan city in the province of Viterbo, on a hill situated on the left bank of the Marta river. It fought against Rome between 358-351 B.C. but in vain. It became a municipium and flourished in the period of the Antonines. It abandoned its ancient seat on the flat hilltop to move, having lost its former splendor, to another plateau, taking the name of Corneto; it later became a Comune and extended its territory toward the Tyrrhenian Sea. It was besieged in vain by Frederick II and defended itself behind its walls and its 25 towers; in the 15th century it passed into the lordship of the Vitelleschi, especially under Cardinal Giovanni. The splendor of this family is attested by the sumptuous Palazzo erected in 1436, today the seat of the Museum. The bishops of T. are recorded in the Roman Synods of the years 465, 487, 499; while in the Synod of 504 the bishop of Gravisca appears. In the year 852 T. was reduced to a parish church and incorporated into the diocese of Tuscania. Eugenio IV on 5 Dec. 1435 detached from the diocese of Viterbo and Tuscania the territory of Corneto, erecting as its cathedral the church of S. Maria and Margherita, and united it to that of Monte Fiascone. Pope Pius IX united Civitavecchia to T. on 23 July 1854; it is immediately subject to the Holy See. In the Roman baths inscriptions were discovered in 1829 attesting that they were erected by the Dasumii Tullii in the 2nd century A.D. In Rome in the cemetery of Callistus a Dasumia Quiriace was buried in the 3rd century (G. B. De Rossi, Roma sotterranea, II, Rome 1870, p. 185 ff.); a Dasumius Tullius had his monument on the Via Appia «ad mil(iarum) prim(um)». Among the Christian inscriptions found in T. is remembered a deceased in the year 419. Among the tombs of T. Christian terracotta lamps were found; in the facade of the church of S. Giovanni is walled a fragment of a Christian sarcophagus with an orant and pastoral scenes.

The first stone of the church of S. Maria in Castello was laid in 1121; in 1143 the doors were adorned and the works completed, as is documented by the mosaic inscription of the architrave of the door; placed in charge of the works in the name of the people of T. were the prior Panvinio and the priest Giorgio; the city was then called Corneto. On the door is also remembered the marble-worker Pietro son of Ranucio. In 1168, at the time of the prior Orso, above the altar was erected the ciborium, the work of the two brothers Ottone and Guittone. The church was solemnly consecrated in 1208. Giovanni di Guittone is the author of the ambo of the Gospel (1209). The interior, which reveals Lombard influences, has three naves supported by pillars and arches with an elliptical dome ruined by the earthquake of 1819. The church also had a baptismal font, by act of Honorius III of 13 Apr. 1221. In the pavement many epigraphs were placed, one belonged to a little girl named Cleopatra, another was placed by a Fl. Maximianus to an Aelia Silvina, but they were brought together with many others by the Roman marble-workers of the 12th-13th centuries, while G. B. De Rossi holds that the epigraph of an «Euticius confessor depositus 11 Kal. septembris in pace ✠» belongs to T. (Bull. arch. crist., 2nd series, 5 [1874], pl. 6).

At the time of Albino and of Cencio Camerario it was subject to the bishop of Tuscania (Liber censuum, ed. P. Fabre-L. Duchesne, I, Paris 1889, p. 56; II, ibid. 1905, p. 110) and the churches of S. Nicola in Corneto and of S. Giovanni de Insula near Corneto are indicated; in a rescript of Celestino III of 23 May 1196 the church of S. Fortunata is remembered as dependent on the abbey of S. Salvatore on Monte Amiata (Jaffé-Wattenbach, n. 17389). The church of S. Giacomo Apostolo, with a single nave, also reveals Lombard influences; that of S. Pancrazio is of the 13th century; the S.ma Annunziata, today an orphanage, is of Cluniac type; of the 13th century are also S. Martino, S. Giovanni Gerosolimitano and S. Salvatore; S. Francesco was rebuilt after the fire of 1642. Notable in the territory was the abbey of S. Maria de Minione (of the Mignone), of which there is record for the first time in a privilege of the emperor Louis II who in 857 granted it to the monastery of Farfa, to which however it was contested in the 10th century by the monks of the SS. Cosma and Damiano in mica Aurea in Rome (P. Fedele, Carte del monastero dei SS. Cosma e Damiano in Mica Aurea, in Arch. della Soc. rom. st. patria, 21 [1898], p. 476 ff.). There remain then the ruins of the castle of the countess Matilda of Canossa. Recently the small town has resumed the name of T. Of great importance is the Etruscan necropolis with tumulus tombs, and the oldest (7th-6th centuries B.C.) with underground chamber with a very rich series of frescoes ranging from the 6th to the 2nd century B.C. - See pl. CXXVI.

II. CIVITAVECCHIA: v. CIVITAVECCHIA.

Enrico Josi