Vallo di Lucania, Diocese of. – A city and diocese in the province of Salerno. It has an area of 3,000 km² with a population of 152,000, all Catholic, distributed across 107 parishes served by 90 diocesan priests and 25 religious; it has a minor seminary, 8 male religious communities and 38 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 418).
In the territory of Lucania, the ancient diocese of Pesto originally existed, of which the martyr Vitus was the patron, who is commemorated in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum on 15 June in Lucania (p. 321; BHL, 8711). In 592, St Gregory the Great ordered Bishop Felix of Agropoli to visit the dioceses of Velia, Buxentum (Capo della Foresta) and Blanda Iulia, which had been left without bishops. The names of the earlier prelates of the first and third are unknown; of Buxentum, a Rusticus is known at the beginning of the 6th century; of Blanda Iulia, Bishop Romanus is known to have been present at the Roman Synod of 5 July 595. L. Duchesne and F. Lanzoni believed that Felix was the bishop of Pesto who had withdrawn to Agropoli because of the Lombard invasion; a bishop of Pesto is present in Rome at the Council of 649. Pesto was then destroyed in 930 by the Saracens; at that time the diocese was transferred to Capaccio, but until the 12th century the bishops retained its title. In 1159, with Bishop Leonardo, the title of Capaccio (Caputaquen.) begins to be found; subsequently the sees of Blanda Iulia and Acropoli were united with Capaccio. In 1568, however, the episcopal see was transferred to Diano; in 1851, Pope Pius IX, with the bull *Cum propter iustitiae dilectionem* of 16 July, created the diocese of Vallo as a suffragan of Salerno, and on 12 October the local church of St Pantaleon was elevated to the status of cathedral. On 24 November 1945 the title of the diocese was changed to Vallo di Lucania. Besides those already mentioned, the following bishops are remembered: Arnolfo, who attended the Lateran Council in 1179; the monk Pietro Matta de Haro (1611); Cardinal Francesco Brancacci (1627); Tommaso Caraffa (1639); Giovanni della Pace (1684). On Monte Sacro (1,705 m), dominating the entire region of Cilento, stands the most venerated sanctuary of the Madonna di Novi Velia and the Holy Mount of Novi. In the diocese were the two Basilian monasteries of St Mary of Centola and St Nicholas of Controne.