TODI, Diocese of. - City and diocese in the province of Perugia.
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 regulars; 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, formerly a Roman municipium. A boundary agreement with Perugia, Assisi, Bevagna and Spoleto dates from 757. A copious list of churches, etc. is given by the Collettorie of the 13th century (Vatican Archive). Wall maps are in the episcopal and municipal palace. The Via Flaminia with the Statio ad Martis directly linked T. with Rome, the Via Amerina with Perugia and Amelia; the roads to Orvieto, to Baschi along the Tiber, and to Spoleto through the Monti Martani are ancient. Christianity spread there early from Rome. In the 4th century an estate called Angulas, donated according to the Liber Pontificalis by Constantine, paid a tribute to the Roman basilica of S. Croce in Gerusalemme. T. after 726 submitted to the Roman Church; in 817 Louis the Pious, in 962 Otto, reconfirmed its possession to the Pope. Innocent III personally resumed its dominion after the occupation by Frederick I and Henry II. During the Avignon period T. made itself independent. Nicholas V, antipope, took refuge there in 1328 together with Louis the Bavarian. Boniface IX in 1392 granted T. first as a prefecture to Malatesta of Rimini and then as a vicariate to Andrea and Pandolfo. In 1433 it passed under Francesco Sforza. Sylvester II held a council at T. (1001); Innocent III dispatched some documents from here (1198); Nicholas V stayed there several days (1449), Pius II a month (1459) and Paul II stopped there on his journey from Perugia to Rome (1535). In 1133 the first Italian Premonstratensian convent arose at T. in the ancient Benedictine cenobium of S. Leucio. The martyr pope St. Martin I (649-56) was born in a small village of the diocese on the right bank of the Tiber, today called Piano di S. Martino; various ancient chapels are dedicated to him. Boniface IX spent his youth at T. with his uncle the bishop and, among various privileges, granted the Franciscans of T. the Studium minus. St. Philip Benizzi O.S.M. died and is buried at T.
In the series of bishops are remembered: St. Terentianus, first bishop and martyr (3rd century); St. Pontian and St. Cassian, martyrs (4th century); Cresconius (485-504), sent by Pope Anastasius II to the emperor Anastasius I over the Acacian schism, signed at the Roman Synods from 499 to 504 (cf. Decretum Gratiani, Dist. 96, cap. 1); St. Callistus, martyr in 528; St. Fortunatus, patron (541), remembered by St. Gregory the Great in the Dialogues; Sabinianus subscribed papal privileges (593-604); Lawrence was at the Lateran Council of 649; John at the Synod convoked by St. Eugene I (656); Boniface at that of St. Agatho (680); Theophylact was sent to England by Adrian I (786) and was papal legate at the Council of Frankfurt (794); John II was at the Roman Council of Eugene II (826); Agatho II at the Synod of Leo IV (853); Hilderic at those of 861, 871 and 888; Rodolfo was sent to govern the Florentine diocese after the simoniac Peter; Otto II was sent to Gaul (1130) by the antipope Anacletus II; Rustico Brancaleoni, received the commission from Innocent III for peace between Perugia and Orvieto (1209); Bonifacio Colmezzo, consecrated by Honorius III, was ordered to make a pastoral visitation because his people «Corpus Christi cum omni honorificentia student custodire»; Ranuccio degli Atti (1326-56); Angelo Cesi (1566-1606) worked for reform and left monumental buildings; Cardinal Marcello Lante founded the Seminary (1608) and Giuseppe Pianetti the Pianettiana Library at Jesi (1709). Also from T. were the Franciscans Jacopone (v.), Cardinal Matteo d'Acquasparta (v.), supreme theologian, Ranerius Tudertinus O. P. mathematician, etc. Besides important Roman remains and memories, T. has on the Flaminia a small underground cemetery, unique in Umbria; in the territory a group of cemetery churches (S. Terenziano, S. Antimo, S. Illuminata, SS. Fidenzio and Terenzio, S. Felice, S. Faustino, S. Arnaldo); in the city: the Cathedral (11th-12th centuries), Maria S.ma della Consolazione (16th century), S.mo Crocifisso (1591). Numerous documents are in the Archives: episcopal, capitular, municipal and of the former Congregazione di carità. The codices of the ancient Franciscan Studium together with a Jacoponic collection are in the municipal Library. - See pl. XXI.
Bibliography17 works
Mario Pericoli