UGENTO, DIOCESE OF. - A city and diocese in the province of Lecce. It covers an area of 350 km² with a population of 87,000, all Catholic, distributed across 33 parishes served by 72 diocesan priests and 13 regular clergy; it has a seminary, 4 male religious communities, and 18 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 438).
An ancient Messapic center at the extreme tip of the Salento peninsula, it preserves monuments of that early civilization; it felt Hellenic influence, but lost all importance under Roman rule due to the constant predominance of Otranto and Taranto. It shared the fortunes of these cities when the dominations of the Lombards, Byzantines, and later the Normans prevailed in succession, interspersed with Muslim invasions that recurred even in the 16th century. As for its Christian origins, no particulars survive; though the Latin element predominated at first, from the 8th century onward a Byzantine period followed, marked by numerous Greek monasteries that gradually disappeared under Norman rule. As a diocese, it is first recorded in a bull of Innocent III dated 23 June 1198 as a suffragan of Otranto, together with Leuca and Lecce; but the list of its bishops does not begin until a Lando in 1254. The origins of the bishopric of Leuca are likewise unknown. The anonymous bishop of Leuca whom Liutprand of Cremona so unfavorably recalls in 968 probably belongs to Byzantine Leucas (S. Maura), certainly not to Leuca (PL 136, 935 sqq.). In the 14th century, at least, the local bishop took up residence in Alessano within the peninsula, perhaps for greater security, and the first securely attested bishop of the *episcopatus Leucadiensis et Alexanensis* is the Dominican Riccardo, elected on 6 September 1333; the series ends in November 1804, and after a long vacancy the diocese was united with that of Ugento in 1818, following the Bourbon Concordat with the Holy See. Ugento continued to be a suffragan of Otranto; the see remained vacant from 1863 to 1873.
MONUMENTS. - The once-flourishing Uxentum, which had its own mint and army, preserves only a few ruins of megalithic walls from its past. The cathedral is dedicated to St. Vincent, deacon of Saragossa, patron of the diocese. Of interest is the 14th-century church of the Madonna del Casale, outside the town, a remnant of an ancient monastic complex now destroyed. Of little note are the few scattered monuments in the diocese. At Leuca, near the promontory (the Roman *Japygium promontorium*), on which stands the Corinthian column erected by Filiberto of Aragon (1694) as a memorial to the supposed landing and preaching of St. Peter, rises the venerated sanctuary of St. Mary or *De finibus terrae*, a Baroque reconstruction (1720) of an earlier building erected over a temple of Minerva, whose altar is still preserved inside. Taurisano preserves a small 14th-century church dedicated to St. Mary of the Way, with a cusped baldachin, rose window, and hanging arches. Presicce, in addition to the Baroque parish church (1778–81), has the church of the Angels, a work by its fellow citizen F. Cito (1596), with a large wooden Crucifix by Fra Pasquale of S. Cesario and the adjoining convent of the Reformed Franciscans. At Tricase stands the spacious mother church (1770) with an ornate Baroque choir and the church of the Dominicans, also Baroque, with two 18th-century paintings.
Of greater interest, however, are the surviving Basilian hermit caves, numerous throughout the Salento. The most important to note is the so-called Crypt of the Crucifix near Ugento, trapezoidal and supported by columns, with 14th-century frescoes still well preserved: the Annunciation, two *Madonnas and Child*, St. Nicholas, and a fine blessing Christ whose figurative perspectives show strong Sicilian and Venetian influences. Other minor *laure* are found near Castrignano and Ruffano (Carmine Crypt with 15th-century frescoes).