VALENCE, DIOCESE OF. – Diocese and prefectural capital city of the Drôme department in France, on the left bank of the Rhône, near the confluence of the Isère.
It has an area of 6,522 sq. km, corresponding to the Drôme department, with a population of 268,233, of whom 250,842 are Catholics, distributed across 246 parishes, served by 410 diocesan priests and 85 regular clergy; it has a major and minor seminary, 10 male religious communities and 90 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 440).
It is the ancient Ventia, later Iulia Valentia, capital of the Segalauini; Prosper Tiro in his Chronicle calls it “nobilissima civitas.” In the Middle Ages the city was under the rule of the bishops, who defended it against the counts of Valentinois; from 1276 to 1687 the bishops also held the title of Counts of V. In 1450 the Dauphin, later Louis XI, obtained part of their rights in exchange for royal protection and the foundation of a university that lasted until 1790 and counted among its teachers Cujas, Saciliero, etc. In 1562 the Huguenots, aided by the Baron des Adrets, seized the city, damaging the cathedral and other religious buildings, especially the abbey of S. Rufo. It was the capital of the Duchy of Valentinois and passed from the Dauphin Louis to Cesare Borgia, to Diane de Poitiers, and to Honoré Grimaldi, Prince of Monaco. Pope Pius VI was held prisoner by the Directory in the citadel for a month and died there on 29 Aug. 1799. A tradition attributes the introduction of Christianity to V. FORTUNA, sent from Lyon, commemorated on 23 Apr. in the Hieronymian Martyrology.
In the third cartulary of Grenoble (Grenoble Library, c. mid-12th century) there is a list of bishops beginning in the mid-9th century. The earliest known bishop is Emiliano, whose name appears at the Council held at V. in 1374. Before 417 there was Maximus, whom Pope Boniface wished to be judged in a letter of 13 June 419 (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 319). Then comes Caristus, who sent a representative to the Council of Vaison in 442; Apollinaris, brother of St Avitus of Vienne, who in 1577 was at the Council of Épaone, is noted in the Germiniano of 5 Oct.; Gallus attended the Council of Orléans in 549; Maximus was represented at the Council of Lyon in 570; Ragnaldus attended the Council of Lyon and the two Councils of Mâcon in 581 and 585; Ingildus was at that of Chalon-sur-Saône in 650. The placement of the bishops Salvio, Antonius, Antoninus, and Elephas cannot be precisely determined. Bishop Valdal had a donation from Charlemagne (808–14); Lambert was under Louis the Pious. On 8 and 9 Jan. 855 a Council was held at V. Then came Repertus (859–79); Isaac attended the Council of Chalon-sur-Saône.
Later bishops include Gotthard (1082–95); John I (1141–46), formerly abbot of Bonnevaux; the Blessed Humbert of Moribel (1200–20); Gerald, formerly abbot of Cluny and then Patriarch of Jerusalem; St Boniface of Savoy (1240–42), later archbishop of Canterbury; Amadeus II, cardinal of Saluzzo (1383–89); John VI, cardinal of Lorraine (1521); Fr. G. de Casteluan, cardinal of Clermont-Lodève (1524–31); Ch. F. Fr. Cotton (1895–1905). On 4 May 1847 Pope Pius IX, in memory of Pius VI, granted the bishops of V. the right to be assistants to the papal throne and Roman counts; they also hold the titles of bishops of Die and of St-Paul-Trois-Châteaux (v.). The diocese is a suffragan of Avignon. The patron saint of the diocese is St Apollinaris.
The cathedral, S. Apollinare, is in Romanesque style with influences from the Auvergne school; it was begun by Bishop Gotthard at the end of the 11th century but was certainly not completed when Urban II consecrated it on 5 Aug. 1095 (inscription in the right aisle). The ensemble belongs to the first half of the 12th century. It was damaged by the Huguenots and restored between 1604 and 1609; however, the choir was disfigured in 1730 and then fully restored in the 19th century. The portico is supported by 32 columns. In the south transept is a fine portal whose tympanum depicts the Saviour between angels and symbols of the four Evangelists, with traces of ancient polychromy. The interior is a Latin cross measuring 75 × 18 m; the transept measures 35.88 m; it is divided into three naves by square piers with four attached columns. The choir is surrounded by eight columns, one of which is an ancient milestone; there is preserved in it a marble monument containing the heart of Pius VI; four apsidal chapels open off the ambulatory. In the transept are the tombs of Mgr de la Tourrette (d. 1840), Chartrousse (1857), and de Bigerques (1919). The sacristy is Gothic (1488). The attached cloister has been destroyed; in its midst stood the surviving characteristic monument erected by Canon Nicolas Mistral in 1548, known as the Pendentif. The church of S. John the Baptist was rebuilt after 1840 in Romanesque style, of which the ancient bell tower from the end of the 12th century remains. The former palace of the abbot of S. Rufo is now occupied by the Prefecture.
Pope Pius XI, by a letter of 24 May 1937, granted the title and privileges of a minor basilica to the church of Notre-Dame de Aiguebelle in the monastery of the Reformed Cistercians, on the occasion of the eighth centenary of the monastery’s foundation, a splendid monument of Romanesque art; from this abbey seven others were founded (AAS, 29 [1937], pp. 395–96). For the Christian sarcophagi preserved at V., V. Wilpert, Sarcofagi, tav. 215, 3, p. 306; tav. 214, 6, p. 296.