It has a population of 60,500 inhabitants, of whom 60,000 are Catholics, distributed in 98 parishes, served by 80 diocesan priests and 36 regular clergy; it has a seminary, 7 male religious communities and 19 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 424). The diocese is immediately subject to the Holy See.
The diocesan territory coincides with that of ancient Tuder, Colonia Fida Julia, already a Roman municipality. A boundary agreement with Perugia, Assisi, Bevagna and Spoleto dates to 757. A copious list of churches, etc., is provided by the 13th-century tax records (Vatican Archive). Wall maps are preserved in the Episcopal and Municipal Palaces. The Via Flaminia, with the Statio ad Martis, directly connected Todi with Rome; the Via Amerina connected it with Perugia and Amelia; ancient routes led to Orvieto, to Baschi along the Tiber, and to Spoleto through the Monti Martani. Christianity spread there early from Rome. In the 4th century a property called Angulas, donated according to the Liber Pontificalis by Constantine, paid tribute to the Roman basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. Todi, after 726
TODI, DIOCESE OF — Baptismal font (15th century) — Todi, Duomo.
received the mandate from Innocent III to broker peace between Perugia and Orvieto (1209); Bonifacio Colmezzo, consecrated by Honorius III, was ordered to undertake a pastoral visitation so that he might «strive to guard his Corpus Christi with all due honor»; Ranuccio degli Atti (1326–56); Angelo Cesi (1566–1606) worked for reform and left monumental constructions; Cardinal Marcello Lante founded the seminary (1608), and Giuseppe Pianetti established the Pianettiana Library in Jesi (1709). Also IACOPONE DA TODI (v.), Cardinal Matteo d’Acquasparta (v.), a distinguished theologian, Rainerius Tudertinus O.P., a mathematician, and others. Besides important Etruscan and Roman remains, Todi has on the Flaminia a small underground cemetery, unique in Umbria; in the territory there is a group of cemetery churches (S. Terenziano, S. Antimo, S. Illuminata, SS. Fidenzio e Terenzio, S. Felice, S. Faustino, S. Arnaldo); in the city: the Cathedral (11th–12th centuries), Santa Maria della Consolazione (16th century), San Crocifisso (1591). Numerous documents are preserved in the Archives: Episcopal, Chapter, Municipal, and of the former Congregation of Charity. The codices of the ancient Franciscan Studium together with a collection of Jacoponic writings are in the Municipal Library. — See pl. XXI.