TERNI AND NARNI, DIOCESES OF. — United sees, but distinct, immediately subject to the Holy See. T. is the provincial capital of Umbria, on the right bank of the Nera. It has an area of approximately 126 sq. km. and a population of 62,615 inhabitants, of whom 62,553 are Catholics, distributed among 20 parishes served by 19 diocesan priests and 33 religious; it has a minor seminary, 5 male and 16 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 421). For N. V. the relevant entry.
T. is the ancient futeranina Nahara of the Romans, under whom it was a municipium assigned to the Clustumina tribe; it is situated on the Via Flaminia between N. and Spoleto. It is considered the birthplace of the emperor Tacitus. It received Christianity at the same time as the surrounding cities. From the suburban cemetery area known as that of S. Valentino, Christian inscriptions were found, the oldest dated one being from 366. The account of the ss. Sabina (v.) and Serapia, whose relics are said to have been transferred to Rome from Vindena near T., has no secure historical foundation. Valentino (v.) was venerated at T.; he was made a bishop of the place, but his identity is disputed with that of a saint of the same name martyred at Rome, probably a native of T. Nothing is known about the origins of the bishopric; the first historically attested bishop is Pretestato in 465, followed by a Costantino in 487 and a Felice in 501; an Omobono is mentioned in an inscription of uncertain date. Gregory I sent to T. Costanzo, bishop of N. (593–98), and in 594 entrusted him with the government of that Church as well, since there was no longer sufficient clergy and people to require the presence of its own bishop. In the church of S. Valentino, Pope Zacharias met King Liutprand in 742. During the early Middle Ages T. was governed by the bishop of N. or by that of Spoleto, while the Chapter was directly subject to the Pope. Finally, on 13 January 1218, Honorius III restored the see by his own bull, and, at the request of the clergy, a native of T., Rainerio, a man of holy life, was appointed bishop. Immediately afterward, by an act of February 1218, the municipality of T. endowed the episcopal mensa. Again, when Honorius went to T. in 1219, he restored to the Chapter of T. possession of the basilica of S. Valentino and warned the bishop of N., who held the nearby castle of Perticara situated immediately above it; moreover, from the Lateran, on 23 February 1219, Honorius marked out the boundaries of the diocese, considerably broader than at present: they extended over part of the lands of Arnolfo, in the Valnerina, to Ferentillo, and as far as the borders of Norcia. The places mentioned above, as a secular jurisdiction, had been held in perpetuity as a vicariate of the cities of T. and Spoleto; but their joint possession gave rise to bloody struggles, until Alexander VI, by a brief of 1502, entrusted their government to the clerics of the Apostolic Camera.
In 1591 the bishop was the Cremonese Giov. Antonio Onorati, who in 1605, with the assistance of the Municipality, undertook excavations at S. Valentino and found beneath the altar the leaden chest containing the body of the Saint. It was transferred to the Cathedral, but the decision prevailed to build a basilica dedicated to S. Valentino, and the Saint’s body was subsequently returned there.
During the last war, in 1943–44, despite the 104 bombings that ravaged the city, the then bishop, mons. Bonomini, did not leave the episcopal residence. During the harshest period preceding the retreat of the Germans, he was the only authority remaining in the city, and organized soup kitchens and relief for the 1,500 people who did not wish or were unable to evacuate.
T. has a Christian cemetery of the 4th–5th centuries in the basilica of S. Valentino outside the walls, several Roman-Christian sarcophagi, and boasts a considerable number of predominantly Romanesque churches, in which the restoration work carried out after the recent war not only resulted in the recovery of their beautiful original forms but also led to the discovery of notable frescoes.
The Cathedral, whose structure, apart from internal traces of the façade, is now eighteenth-century, preserves a crypt of the 7th–8th centuries. S. Salvatore is an Early Christian church of the 5th century, circular in plan, with additions from the 13th and 15th centuries. It arose over earlier Roman constructions but was independent of them, as recent excavations have shown: it is an interesting vaulted building constructed in the characteristic local sponge stone. Other Romanesque churches include S. Lorenzo, with two apsidal naves; S. Cristoforo, with valuable frescoes from the 13th–15th centuries; and S. Alb, whose restoration is about to begin. Dating from the 13th century and subsequently enlarged, the Romanesque-Gothic S. Francesco has a central nave covered by ribbed vaults in exposed stone, and a cycle of fifteenth-century frescoes with a Dantesque subject (the Cappella Paradisi). The Augustinian church of S. Pietro, now restored, originated between the 13th and 15th centuries; it has a broad single nave and frequently superimposed frescoes ranging from Cavallini-like and Sienese (Lorenzetti-like) types and Abruzzese influences to motifs derived from Gozzoli. S. Maria al Monumento, near the cemetery, which includes, among other works, hagiographic mannerist frescoes by Ottaviano Nelli (the legend of the “Golden Apples”), dates from the same period.
While the patron saint, s. Valentino, is greatly venerated in the basilica dedicated to him, devotion to the miraculous image of Madonna della Misericordia has been particularly fervent in the Cathedral since the last century. A few kilometres from T., toward Stroncone, are the ruins of the ancient abbey of S. Benedetto.