Tarazona, Diocese of

TARAZONA, Diocese of. - City and diocese in the provinces of Saragossa and Navarre in Spain.

It has an area of 4,713 sq km with a population of 158,967 inhabitants, all Catholics, distributed in 140 parishes, served by 263 diocesan priests and 62 regulars; it has two seminaries, the conciliar one of St. Gaudiosus and the minor one; 9 male religious communities and 48 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 416). Since 17 July 1889 the Ordinary has had the perpetual administration of Tudela, which since 1851 had been united to Pamplona.

Turiaso is mentioned by Pliny as the principal city of the Celtiberians. There is no reliable information about the origins of Christianity in T. Idatius in his chronicle mentions Bishop Leo in 449; in 560 T. had as bishop Gaudiosus of the Asanense monastery, then Didymus is mentioned, Stephen who was at the third Council of Toledo, Floridius who took part in that of Gundemar in 611, Elpisius who was at the fourth and fifth Councils of Toledo, then Nepotian who was the last bishop of the Visigothic period. When Alfonso I "el Batallador" reconquered T. in 1119 Michael Cornel re-established the episcopal see; he was succeeded by Juan Frontin, García Frontin and García II Frontin, counsellor of James the Conqueror; later Miguel Jiménez de Urrea (1309-16); and in this time T. and its Cathedral suffered because of the war between Pedro IV the Ceremonious and Peter the Cruel of Castile. In more recent times Msgr. G. Castellon y Salas (1815-35) and Msgr. J. Goma y Tomas, later cardinal of Toledo (d. 1940). Until 1318 T. was a suffragan of Tarragona; from that year it passed under the metropolitan of Saragossa.

The Cathedral was begun in the 13th century and completed in the 16th century and therefore displays various styles; the north portal is Renaissance, the interior is inspired by the Seo of Saragossa; in the ambulatory are the alabaster tombs of Bishop P. Calvillo and of his brother the cardinal. The chapel in honour of Sts. Peter and Paul has a dome (1532). The adjoining cloister is of the 15th century, but its Gothic forms were disfigured in the 18th century. Near the Cathedral, in the ancient Palace of the kings of Aragon, is the episcopal palace (14th-15th centuries). The ancient Cathedral was in the church of the Magdalene. The patron of the diocese is St. Prudentius (2 April).

Among the other churches are remembered those of St. Francis of the 13th century, of St. Michael of the 16th century with Romanesque remains, of the Merced of the 17th century. Notable is the "romeria" of Moncayo where every year on 2 July the typical popular procession takes place. At 13 km south of T. is the monastery of Veruela founded by Peter of Arles in 1146, with buildings of the 12th-15th centuries for the Cistercians; the unfinished cloister is of the 14th century. The buildings now belong to the eastern Castile province of the Society of Jesus (V. Lamperez, El monasterio de Veruela, in Bol. de la r. Acad. de la hist., 73 [1918], pp. 509-14; R. Del Arco, El Monasterio de S. Maria de Veruela [Saragossa 1923]; Cottineau, II, coll. 3349-50). At 40 km from T. is Agreda with notable churches. That of N. S. de la Peña is Romanesque, with two equal naves; the church of St. Michael is of the end of the 15th century with a Romanesque bell tower; that of N. S. de las Milagros is of the 16th century and contains a polychrome statue of the Blessed Virgin of the 14th century; the church of St. John is of the 15th century; that of N. S. de Magafia has three naves with ogival vaults. In the territory of the diocese, that is at Cascante, was born the blessed Vincenza Maria Lopez y Vicuña (v.) foundress of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate, beatified by Pope Pius XII on 13 February 1950 (AAS, 42 [1950], pp. 207-208, 237-42, 264-66).

Enrico Josi