VELLETRI, DIOCESE OF. — It is one of the suburbicarian dioceses which, with the exception of the city and territory of Velletri included in the province of Rome, extends into the northwest portion of the province of Latina; immediately subject to the Holy See; area 479 sq km; inhabitants 90,451; Catholics 90,200; churches 52; parishes 29; secular priests 51; regulars 24; minor seminary. The patrons are: St Clement and, since 1806, also Our Lady of Graces.
On the border of Latium vetus, Velletri was the Volscian Velester, with alternating fortunes always in conflict with Rome, until it was definitively subdued in 338 BC by the consul C. Menius. It then became Velitrae and a Roman municipium; yet the well-known inscription on a bronze lamina indicates that the Volsci language was still spoken there in the 4th century. It boasted many monuments now entirely vanished, including a 6th-century BC temple decorated with terracotta sculptures of high artistic value. With the invasion of Alaric, Velletri declined and in the iconoclastic struggle and the Investiture Controversy it sided with the Church, obtaining privileges. In 1181 it saw the election as pope of its cardinal bishop Ubaldo Allucingoli (Lucius III), who continued to reside there, with his court, until 1183.
Its autonomy was affirmed when Gregory IX placed it under the jurisdiction of the Holy See, detaching it from those of the commune of Rome. In 1299 the same pope Boniface VIII served as its podestà. Yet during the Avignon period Rome regained the upper hand, not without resistance from Velletri, which was simultaneously torn apart internally by the factions of the Sheep (Guelphs) and the Wolves (Ghibellines). In the first half of the 16th century it passed definitively under the direct rule of the Church, becoming a protectorate and governed by the cardinal bishop. In its territory took place: the battle of 10 August 1774, an episode of the War of the Austrian Succession in which the Austrian general Lobkowitz was defeated; the democratic uprisings, with the related popular rebellions, of 1798 and the clashes between Garibaldi’s volunteers and Neapolitan troops in 1849.
It remains uncertain when Christianity was introduced to Velletri. Apart from the Christian marble sarcophagus (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pl. 4, 3, pp. 3, 59, 131), some Christian inscriptions, perhaps from the 4th century, come from the local suburban cemetery discovered in 1750 in the district of Palazzo outside Porta Napoletana. Although its exact location has been lost, as some chance finds after 1910 suggest, its galleries with loculi closed by tiles are to be sought on either side of the Via Appia Nuova between Velletri and the railway (cf. Notizie di arch. st. ed arte di V., 1942, pp. 37; 41-43). Another Christian cemetery, probably from the 4th century, 4.5 km from the city in the district of Solluna, was discovered in 1921. Yet it seems to have served rather the Christians of the nearby Mansio ad sponsas on the Via Appia Antica than those of Velletri. In any case, the ancient titular of the cathedral, St Clement, has been arbitrarily regarded as the evangelizer and proto-bishop of the diocese. The earliest known bishop, however, remains Adcodatus (465).
The diocese of Velletri was enlarged by the temporary annexation in August 592 and definitive union between 870-80 of the episcopal see of Tres Tabernae (q.v.; after 963, with that of the see of Norma, of which only the bishop John is known, present at the Roman council in November of that year. To protect it from barbarian incursions, a bull of Gregory I (February 592) permitted the temporary transfer of the Velletri episcopal see to the church of St Andrew in Silice at Castelvecchio, today Le Castella. It reached its zenith around the year 1150, when, it seems, it was united to the diocese of Ostia, the see of the cardinal deacon, a situation that lasted until 5 May 1934.
The prelates of Velletri belong to the order of cardinal bishops, and among them are to be recalled: St Gerard of Morvoe (1146), who freed Velletri from the Saracens; Ugolino de’ Conti (Gregory IX); Rinaldo de’ Conti (Alexander IV); Peter of Tarentaise O.P. (Innocent V); Latino Malabranca Orsini (1278), great statesman and diplomat; Nicholas Boccasini O.P. (Benedict XI); Nicholas of Prato (1304), pacifier of Tuscany; Peter d’Étain (1377), legate in Italy; William d’Estoueville (1461), to whom is owed the erection of the episcopal palace; Giuliano della Rovere (Julius II), restorer of the cathedral; Alessandro Farnese (Paul III); Gian Pietro Carafa (Paul IV); Bartolomeo Pacca (q.v.); Luigi Micara (1844); Basilio Pompili (1920), who provided the seminary with a summer residence; and Clemente Micara (since 1946), who restored the cathedral damaged by aerial bombardment in 1943-44.
Among its native sons are: Giovanni da Velletri, distinguished bishop of Florence (1205-30); the painters Andrea da Velletri (14th c.), Giovanni (15th c.), Luciano (15th c.) and Lello (16th c.); Antonio Mancinelli (1462-1505), humanist and pupil of Pomponio Leto; Ruggero Giovani (1560-1625), musician and successor of Palestrina; Cardinal Marzio Ginnetti (1585-1670), diplomat and patron of the arts; Bonaventura Teoli O.F.M. Conv. (1596-1670), apostolic vicar of Constantinople, historian and founder of the Accademia degli Estinti in place of that of the Gonfiori, and in rivalry with other contemporary academies, which were eclipsed by the celebrated Accademia Volsca Veliterna (1765-1839) of European fame; Alessandro Borgia (1731-1804), archbishop of Fermo and friend of L. A. Muratori; Cardinal Alessandro Borgia, prefect of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, historian and orientalist; Clemente Cardinali, archaeologist of great renown; Canon Ignazio Galli, distinguished meteorologist and seismologist, who died in 1920; and Monsignor Attilio Gabrielli (1876-1927), esteemed researcher and popularizer of municipal records.
MONUMENTS. — The cathedral of St Clement, already mentioned in 496, rebuilt in the Romanesque period to which belong, besides the crypt, the apse with frescoes from 1300 and Gothic superstructures, was transformed in 1660 and enclosed the notable chapel of Our Lady of Graces (1637). The adjoining capitular museum preserves, among other things, a Madonna and Child by Gentile da Fabriano (1426); a Madonna attributed to Antoniazzo Romano; four fragments of an Exultet roll, perhaps from the school of Montecassino (14th-12th c.); the very rich Byzantine-style cruciform reliquary (8th or 9th c.), donated by Alexander IV, and precious sacred vestments. Also noteworthy are the remains of the Passion Theatre for the performance, from 1499 to 1675, of the Mysteries; the church of St Mary at the Crossroads by C. Maderno (1622), with a classical-style façade (1840); the imposing bell tower of 1353 in Romanesque style with double biforas and double single-light windows; the monumental Ginnetti Palace with the renowned panoramic staircase by Martino Longhi the Elder, destroyed in the war; the town hall by G. della Porta (1575) with a library of great local historical interest; the church of St Mary of the Blood in Bramantesque style (17th c.); the church of St Michael the Archangel (12th c.); and the church of St Martin, recorded in 1065, rebuilt in Greek-cross form (1772) with a tetrastyle pronaos (1825). In the diocese, besides the imposing Cyclopean walls of Norma and Cori, in this city are admired the so-called Temple of Hercules; the collegiate church of St Mary of Pity, with one of the oldest Easter candelabra (12th c.); the little church of the Annunciation (15th c.), besides the singular church with cloister of St Olivia (15th c.), and at Ninfa, where Pope Alexander II was crowned (1152), the evocative ruins, medieval and Renaissance, of the town, abandoned in the 17th century.
To the southeast of Cisterna, local place names recall the vanished Castello di Tivera (Tiberia), a favored residence of Pope Paschal II. — See pl. CXXI.