VANNES, DIOCESE OF. - Diocese and city, capital of a prefecture in the department of Morbihan in France. Its name in Breton is Gwened. It has an area of 6,798 sq km with a population of 506,884 inhabitants, of whom 505,000 are Catholics distributed in 295 parishes, served by 933 diocesan priests and 125 regulars; it has a major and a minor seminary, 66 male religious communities and 362 female (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 443). It is a suffragan of Rennes; the patron of the diocese is St. Paternus; of the city of V. it is St. Vincent Ferrer.
The name of the city derives from the people of the Veneti, whose capital it was; the Veneti were at the head of the confederation that opposed Caesar, who destroyed their fleet in 56 B.C. The Romans laid out roads leading to Corseul, Locmariaquer, Hennebont, Rennes, Nantes and Angers. By the middle of the 6th century V. already had its counts. It withstood harsh sieges in 1342. Duke John V had the castle of l'Hermine built and summoned to V. St. Vincent Ferrer, who died there in 1419 and was buried in the Cathedral. Brittany was united to the French crown in 1532.
The list of the bishops of V. is in the Cartulary of Quimperlé. Between 461 and 490 a council was held at V. on the occasion of the episcopal consecration of Paternus; Modestus took part in 511 in the Council of Orléans; Macliavus was bishop ca. the middle of the 6th century, and is mentioned by Gregory of Tours (Hist. Francorum, IV, 4), as is Ennius (ibid., V, 26, 29, 40); then Regalis, ca. 590 (ibid., X, 2); Ago is from the time of Charlemagne, as is Isaac (cf. J. La Martinière, Les origines chrétiennes et les premières églises de V., in Mémoires de la Société polymathique du Morbihan, 1913); Auriscandus appears in documents of 971 and 990; Iudicael from June 992 to 1032. In more recent times are remembered P. de Foix, the cardinals L. Pucci (1514-1531) and A. Pucci (1531-44); C. De Marillac (1550-60). At V. councils were held in the years 461 or 465, 818 and 846.
The Cathedral, dedicated to St. Peter, still preserves the bell tower of the beginning of the 13th century to the north of the façade, while the rest dates in large part to the 15th and 16th centuries; the round chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament is from 1537; the vaults and the choir are from the second half of the 18th century; the main portal was redone in 1873. The interior (44 × 25 m) has a single nave with five chapels on each side, above which runs a gallery; in the third chapel on the right is the tomb of Msgr. De Bertin (d. 1774); in the fourth, beneath the altar, is laid the blessed P. R. Rogue, b. at V. in 1758, martyred on 3 March 1796 and beatified by Pope Pius XI on 10 May 1926; in the same chapel is buried Msgr. Tréhion (d. 1941); in the second chapel on the left is the tomb of Msgr. Laticule (d. 1903). In the crossing are the altars of the apostles Peter and Paul; the tomb and reliquaries of St. Vincent Ferrer, of whom certain tapestries, offered in 1615 by the bishop Msgr. J. De Martin, represent the canonization and the miracles. At the end of the choir is the chapel of Notre-Dame (1536-46) with the tombs of the bishops Msgr. S. De Rosmade (d. 1646) and Msgr. F. D'Argouges (d. 1716).
The church of St. Paternus, originally Romanesque, was begun to be rebuilt in 1727. The college St. Francis Xavier preserves the chapel of 1690.
The episcopal palace is the work of the architect R. De Colte; it was erected by the bishop Msgr. Ch. Fr. d'Allancourt (1723-54). The municipal Museum occupies the ancient Hôtel de la Princerie or of the Primicerius, rebuilt in 1525 by the brothers Musson, canons of V. In the Palace of the ancient Parliament of Brittany, also called Château Gaillard, erected in the first half of the 15th century, is today the archaeological Museum, rich in prehistoric, Gallo-Roman and medieval antiquities, and in objects of the Renaissance; it also preserves an Aubusson tapestry of 1671. The municipal Library comprises over 50,000 vols., 122 incunabula and over 800 manuscripts coming in large part from the suppressed abbeys of the territory of V. Worthy of note among others is the illuminated Breviary of the bishop Hugh de Bar of 1352. Of the ancient abbey of St-Vannes there remains only a tower of its church inserted in the walls of the citadel, while capitals and tombstones are in the municipal Museum.
The principal sanctuaries venerated in the diocese are: St. Anne d'Auray (there the image of St. Anne, burned in 1793, was replaced by a new statue on 30 Sept. 1868); Notre-Dame de Larmor; Notre-Dame de Quelven at Guern; Notre-Dame du Roncier at Josselin; Notre-Dame du Vœu at Hennebont. The charterhouse of St. Michael at Auray was founded in 1480 by Duke Francis II in place of the collegiate church established in 1382 by John IV of Montfort, after the victory of 1364; the charterhouse was suppressed by the Revolution, and there is now a hospice for the deaf and mute kept by the Sisters of Wisdom. Near the church a mausoleum was erected in 1829 in memory of the 900 émigrés of Quiberon shot in 1795 (A. Le Mené, Chartreux d'Auray, in Bulletin de la Société polymath. du Morbihan, 47 [1905], p. 274 ff.).