TAURIANO. - Ancient episcopal see of Calabria, aggregated to Mileto in 1086.

It was a maritime city, between Medma and Palmi, near present-day Gioia Tauro. In all likelihood it took its name from the nearby river Metauro, today the Petrace. It does not appear among the colonies of Magna Graecia, but it appears in the Roman period, mentioned by Pliny, by Mela and by Stephanus of Byzantium. Nevertheless the inscriptions, discovered recently, demonstrate that in the imperial era at T. the population was mixed, Greek and Latin.

At T. the faith was preached early; an inscription from the Constantinian era commemorates a bishop Leucosius, which is a Latinized Greek name. In the 5th century St. Fantinus (v.) dwelt there, on whose tomb arose a Basilian monastery, mentioned by Nilus Doxapatres around 1140. His life was written by the bishop Peter in the 8th century.

In the Registrum of St. Gregory the Great mention is made of T. To its bishop Paulinus the Pope in 591 recommends that he gather at Messina his monks, dispersed by a barbarian incursion, perhaps Lombard. They were not, however, monks, as some think; but clerics of common life, after the example of those who lived near St. Eusebius, St. Martin, St. Augustine, etc. A bishop by the name of Lawrence took part in the Synod of St. Martin in 649. He is the last Latin name that appears in the catalogue of the bishops of T. In 680 the bishop George signs in Greek, and so do all his successors. During the Byzantine domination, T. became a notable monastic center: there dwelt Sts. Elias of Enna, the Spelaeote, and Philaretus. The last bishop, whose name authentically recurs, is Paul, who was at the ecumenical Council of 870. Nevertheless from the Bios of St. Elias the Spelaeote it emerges that he, at the point of death, was assisted ca. 960 by the bishop Vitalis. At that time, therefore, the episcopal see still existed, perhaps transferred to Seminara, given that the city, it seems, was destroyed by the Saracen raids of Hasan ebd All in 950-51. Count Roger the Norman, who in 1073 had founded the bishopric of Mileto with the spoils of Vibona, in 1086 also aggregated to it the territory of T., for which he obtained the canonical sanction of Urban II in 1093.

Bibliography10 works

BIBL.: Leone il Sapiente, Notitiae Episcopatum: PG 107, 342-43; G. Barrio, De antiquitate et situ Calabriae, ed. T. Aceti, Roma 1737, pp. 168-80; G. Fiore, Calabria III., II, Napoli 1743, p. 281; A. De Salvo, Notizie stor. e topogr. intorno a Metauria e T., Napoli 1886; id., Seminara e Gioia Tauro, Palmi 1899; G. Minasi, Le chiese di Calabria, Napoli 1896, pp. 198, 248-49; D. Taccone-Gallucci, Regesti dei rom. pont. alle chiese di Calabria, Roma 1902, p. 447; P. Orsi, Iscriz. crist. di T. nei Bruzzi, in Arch. st. calabrese, 3 (1904), pp. 210-36; Lanzoni, I, p. 213; A. Crispo, Iscriz. pre-bizantine, in Arch. st. Calabria e Lucania, 14 (1944), p. 119 ff.

Francesco Russo

@incollection{ec11_tauriano, author = {Russo, Francesco}, title = {Tauriano}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XI}, pages = {1799--1800}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/tauriano} }

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