TORTOSA, DIOCESI of. — City and diocese in the civil province of Tarragona in Spain. With an area of 8,709 sq. km., it has a population of 450,000 inhabitants, all Catholics, distributed among 209 parishes served by 232 diocesan and 74 regular priests; it has a « conciliare diocesano de Jesus » seminary, 18 male and 83 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 427). It is suffragan to Tarragona. Patroness of the diocese is the Blessed Virgin under the title of the Nativity, feast on 8 September.
The city of T. is situated on the left bank of the Ebro, in a fertile, narrow plain surrounded by mountains. It is the ancient Roman city of Dertosa Iulia Augusta; it was besieged and taken by Louis the Pious in 811; recovered by the Arabs, it was reconquered by Ramon Berengario IV in 1148. In the fourteenth century, T.’s Libro de las costumbres acquired great importance.
The first known bishop was Ursus in 516. During the Arab invasion T. suffered greatly, and little is known of its history. In 1068 Paterno became its bishop; after Ramon Berengario reconquered it, Gaufrius, abbot of S. Rufo in Avignon, became bishop; from 1473 to 1513 it was governed by Alfonso of Aragon; then by Adriano Florentz of Utrecht from 1516 to 1522 (cardinal from 1517, and later Pope Adrian VI); he was succeeded by Cardinal Guglielmo Enkevort (1523–34), and from 1623 by Cardinal Agostino Spinola, transferred in 1627 to Granata.
The Cathedral, begun in 1158, was consecrated by Berengario, archbishop of Tarragona, in 1178; it was rebuilt between 1347 and 1597 and reconsecrated on 8 June of that year. Further additions were made between 1621 and 1725; it is therefore partly pointed and partly Baroque in style. The tower called « Almudena » dates from the Arab period. The interior has three naves; the high altar, from the fourteenth century, and the choir, from the sixteenth, were destroyed during the war of 1936–38. The ambulatory, with fluted pillars, dates from the fifteenth century; the wooden retablo with the Madonna and Child is from the fourteenth century. To the right of the choir is the « Parroquial », with pillars and a dome dating from 1800. In the sacristy there is an inscription recalling the ancient mosque; the Treasury housed there contains artistic reliquaries, a covering depicting Christ seated on a throne, manuscripts, tapestries, etc. The Gothic choir adjoining the north side dates from the thirteenth century. The church of N. S. del Rosario was rebuilt in 1947. The Bishop’s Palace, dating from the fourteenth century and remodelled in the eighteenth, was damaged in 1938. The convent of S. Luigi was founded by Charles V in 1544; it has a Renaissance façade and a two-storey « patio », decorated with 38 busts of the sovereigns of Aragon from 1137 to the beginning of the seventeenth century. The former convent of S. Domingo has a Renaissance façade and is now used as a museum of Iberian, Roman, Arab, and medieval antiquities; ceramics from Alcora and Manises, artistic leatherwork from Valencia, paintings, etc. The archives are also housed there, including the municipal charter of 1149. Three kilometres from T., at Roquetas, the former Jesuit College houses the Cosmic Physical Observatory. — Vedi tav. XXXIV.