TELESE (CERRETO SANNITA), DIOCESE OF
City and diocese in the province of Benevento, covering an area of over 414 km²; it has a population of 59,200 inhabitants, almost all Catholic, distributed across 24 parishes served by 66 diocesan priests and 6 regular clergy; it has a minor seminary, 3 male religious communities, and 16 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 419). The episcopal see is in Cerreto Sannita.
The first known bishop of Telesia, Florenzio, was attested by G. Rossi (v. BIBLICA) in 465; the origin of the diocese therefore certainly dates back at least to the mid-5th century. The successor, Agnello, is also among the signatories of the Roman Holy Synod of 487. Beyond these two names, however, no others are known that recall the Sannite Telesia, a city that declined after Roman occupation, then suffered damage from the Goths and later became the seat of a Lombard gastaldate. The generally accepted mention of a bishop Menna is no longer tenable, as the diploma attributed to Gregory the Great is considered false (Jaffé-Wattenbach, no. 1366). The silence of all sources in the following centuries is certainly the painful echo of the tragic events that devastated the city. First the Saracens (847), then an earthquake reduced the city to rubble; shortly afterward, new pirate incursions repeatedly devastated II. For four centuries almost nothing is known about its Church. Finally, in the 9th century, G. Rossi records a Palerio, then two anonymous bishops in 969 and 1061, and finally an Arnaldo in 1068. The only certain information is from the Roman Synod of 969, where John XIII elevated Benevento to a metropolitan see, assigning Telesia among its suffragans, as it still is. The state of the city at that time and the extent of the diocese’s territory remain unknown. In 1193 the Norman Tancredi captured and burned the city, but its rapid rebirth soon followed, and Telesia soon came under royal control. The series of prelates also shows no significant gaps.
Pietro attended the Third Lateran Council in 1179; Luciano, first noted by Mazzacane (v. BIBLICA., p. 143), is attested in 1214 in a parchment from the Historical Archive of the Neapolitan Provinces. R. or Rao is known in 1240, along with his successor Salerno (1286). Upon his death, the Chapter allegedly elected its own primicerius F. Pellegrini, but this election was not confirmed by the Pope; instead, the names of Aczo (1290) and then a Riso or Giovanni Ariasio in 1326 appear. In 1349, during the episcopate of the Franciscan Domenico, another and more violent earthquake destroyed Telesia. From then on, the city depopulated, and the bishops increasingly tended to reside in nearby Cerreto (the healthy Cominio Cerito), a location that was salubrious, wealthy, and flourishing in trade. Cerreto would give Telesia a bishop of its own, Biagio Caropipe (1515–24). The only prelate worth recalling in the following two centuries is Angelo Massarelli of S. Severino, secretary to Paul IV and his predecessors, and later secretary of the Council of Trent, for which he wrote the chronicle of its acts. From 1571 Telesia gave its name only to the diocese, as the bishops from that year onward always resided in Cerreto. Among those remembered in this period are Annibale Cattaneo (or Cotugno), a Neapolitan patrician buried in the church of the Most Holy Trinity in Cerreto (1577–83); Giovanni F. Leo of Ivrea (1608–13), a noted jurist and protonotary; and Pietro Paolo de Rustici (1637–43), a relative of Urban VIII. During the episcopate of G. B. De Lellis (1684–93), Cerreto itself was destroyed by an earthquake on June 5, 1688; but the efforts of the citizens and especially the bishop’s intervention led to the founding of a new city, which still bears the face and character of that era.
In 1820, Pius VII, with the bull *Adorandi Servatoris*, united Telesia with Alife, with the episcopal residence in Cerreto. Later, Pius IX, with the bull *Conpertum nobis* of July 6, 1852, separated the dioceses again, ending a long and bitter dispute over precedence; the diocese of Telesia thus also assumed the name *seu Cerretana* and came to include 15 neighboring towns with their dependencies.
### Monuments
Of ancient Telesia, only Roman-era ruins are now emerging; no traces remain of its ancient sacred buildings, which, like those in Cerreto, were destroyed by human action and seismic activity. The seminary, the episcopal palace, and the cathedral of Cerreto belong to the general reconstruction of the late 17th century. The latter, consecrated in 1740, is a large Latin-cross building with three naves divided by pillars. Popular shrines in the immediate vicinity of the city are the churches of *S. Maria delle Grazie* and *S. Anna*.
In the diocese, in Cusano Mutri, the church of *S. Nicola* preserves a fine portal by Ferrante da Cerreto (1537), now at the baptismal font of 1444; in the sacristy is a 14th-century silver reliquary containing a thorn from Christ’s crown, donated by a crusader. In the ancient church of *SS. Pietro e Paolo*, rebuilt in 1626, besides the high altar stands an ornate wooden structure carved by D. De Luca (1661) as an iconostasis. Nearby, the church of *S. Croce* or *del Calvario* (1688) houses a *Flagellation* attributed to Luca Giordano or his school; the small church of *S. Maria del Castagneto* contains a fine Byzantine-style wooden Madonna.