Terni and Narni, dioceses of. — United but distinct sees, immediately subject to the Holy See. Terni is a provincial capital in Umbria, on the right bank of the Nera River. It has an area of approximately 126 km² and a population of 62,615, of whom 62,553 are Catholics, distributed across 20 parishes served by 19 diocesan priests and 33 religious; it has a minor seminary, 5 male religious communities, and 16 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 421). For Narni, see the corresponding entry.
Terni is the ancient *Interamna Nahars* of the Romans, which under them was a municipium assigned to the *Tribus Clustumina*. It lies on the Via Flaminia between Narni and Spoleto. It is considered the birthplace of the emperor Tacitus. It received Christianity at the same time as the neighboring cities. From the suburban cemetery area known as that of St. Valentine, Christian inscriptions have been recovered, the oldest of which is dated 366. The account of the holy martyrs Sabina (q.v.) and Serapia, whose relics are said to have been transferred from Vindemila near Terni to Rome, lacks secure historical foundation. The martyr Valentine (q.v.) was venerated at Terni, where he was later regarded as a local bishop, though his identity is disputed with that of a namesake martyred in Rome, probably from Terni. Nothing is known of the origins of the bishopric; the first historically attested bishop is Pretestatus in 465, followed by Constantine in 487 and Felix in 501; an inscription of uncertain date mentions an Omobonus. Gregory I sent to Terni the bishop of Narni, Constantius (593–98), and in 594 entrusted him also with the governance of that Church, since there was no longer sufficient clergy and people to require the presence of a bishop of their own. In the church of St. Valentine, Pope Zachary met King Liutprand in 742.
During the early Middle Ages, Terni was governed by the bishop of Narni or by that of Spoleto, while the Chapter was directly subject to the Pope. Finally, on 13 January 1218, Honorius III, by his own bull, restored the see and, at the request of the clergy, appointed a local man, Rainerius, a man of holy life, as bishop. Shortly afterward, in February 1218, the municipality of Terni endowed the episcopal table. Honorius, who visited Terni in 1219, restored the basilica of St. Valentine to the Chapter of Terni and warned the bishop of Narni, who was holding the nearby castle of Perticara. Moreover, from the Lateran on 23 February 1219, Honorius defined the boundaries of the diocese, which were much larger than at present, extending over part of the lands of the Arnoldi family in the Valnerina, to Ferentillo, and as far as the borders of Norcia. These places, as lay jurisdictions, had been held in perpetuity as a vicariate of the cities of Terni and Spoleto; but the mixed possession gave rise to bloody conflicts, until Alexander VI, by a brief of 1502, assigned their governance to the clerics of the Apostolic Chamber.
In 1591, the see was held by the Cremonese Giovanni Antonio Onorati, who in 1605, with the aid of the commune, undertook excavations at St. Valentine and discovered beneath the altar a leaden chest containing the body of the saint. Translated to the cathedral, it was decided to build a basilica to St. Valentine, and there the saint’s body was later returned.
During the last war, in 1943–44, despite the 104 bombings that devastated the city, the then-bishop, Msgr. Bonomini, did not abandon the episcopal residence. In the harshest period before the withdrawal of the Germans, he was the only authority left in the city, organizing soup kitchens and relief for the 1,500 people who refused or were unable to evacuate.
Terni possesses a Christian cemetery of the 4th–5th centuries in the basilica of St. Valentine outside the walls, some Roman-Christian sarcophagi, and a notable number of churches, mostly Romanesque, in which restorations after the recent war have not only recovered original forms but also revealed significant frescoes.
The cathedral, whose structure, apart from traces of the façade inside, is now 18th-century, preserves a crypt of the 7th–8th centuries. St. Salvatore is a paleochristian church of the 5th century, circular in plan, with additions from the 13th and 15th centuries, built over earlier Roman structures but independent of them, as recent excavations have shown; an interesting building, vaulted, constructed in the characteristic local sponge-stone. Other Romanesque churches include: St. Lawrence, with two naves and an apse; St. Christopher, with fine frescoes of the 13th–15th centuries; and St. Alo, whose restoration is about to begin. Of the 13th century, later enlarged, the Romanesque-Gothic St. Francis has a central nave vaulted in ribbed stone, and a 15th-century fresco cycle with Dantean subjects (the Chapel of Paradise). Between the 13th and 15th centuries arose the now-restored Augustinian church of St. Peter, with a broad single nave, frescoes often superimposed ranging from Cavallinesque and Sienese (Lorenzettian) types and Abruzzese influences to motifs derived from Gozzoli; St. Mary at the Monument near the cemetery, among other things, has frescoes in the manner of Ottaviano Nelli of hagiographic character (the legend of the “Golden Apples”), dating from the same period.
While the patron St. Valentine is greatly venerated in the homonymous basilica, in the cathedral the devotion to the miraculous image of Our Lady of Mercy has been very lively since the last century. A few kilometers from Terni, toward Stroncone, are the ruins of the ancient abbey of St. Benedict.