VELLETRI, Diocese of. - It is one of the suburbicarian dioceses which, with the exception of the city and territory of V. included in the province of Rome, extends over the north-western portion of the province of Latina; immediately subject to the Holy See; area 479 sq. km.; pop. 90,451; Catholics 90,200; churches 52; parishes 29; secular priests 51; regular 24; minor seminary. The patrons are: St. Clement and, since 1806, also Our Lady of Graces.
On the border of Latium vetus, V. is the Volscian Velester, with alternating fortunes always in struggle against Rome, until it was definitively subdued in 338 B.C. by the consul C. Menius. It then becomes Velitrae and a Roman municipium; but the well-known inscription on a bronze tablet indicates that in the 4th century Volscian was still spoken there. It boasted many monuments that have entirely disappeared, among them a temple of the 6th century B.C. decorated with terracottas of high artistic value. With the invasion of Alaric, V. declined, and in the iconoclast struggle and in that over investitures it stood alongside the Church, obtaining privileges. In 1181 it witnessed the election to the pontificate of its cardinal bishop Ubaldo Allucingoli (Lucius III), who continued to reside there, with the court, until 1183.
But its autonomy was affirmed when Gregory IX placed it under the dependence of the Holy See, detaching it from that of the commune of Rome. In 1299 Pope Boniface VIII himself was its podestà. However, during the Avignon period Rome regained the upper hand, not without resistance on the part of V., which was at the same time torn 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 dominion of the Church, with the cardinal bishop becoming its protector and governor. Within its territory took place: the battle of 10 Aug. 1774, an episode of the War of the Austrian Succession, in which the Austrian Gen. Lobkowitz was defeated; the democratic risings, with the related popular rebellions, of 1798, and the clashes between Garibaldians and Neapolitan troops in 1849.
It is still uncertain when Christianity was introduced at V. Besides the Christian marble sarcophagus (Wilpart, Sarcofagi, pl. 4, 3, pp. 3, 50, 131), some Christian inscriptions, perhaps of the 4th century, come from the local suburban cemetery, discovered in 1750 in the Palazzo district outside the Porta Napoletana. Although its exact location has been lost, nevertheless, as some chance discoveries made after 1910 suggest, its galleries, with loculi closed by tiles, are to be sought on the two sides of the Via Appia Nuova, between V. and the railway (cf. Notizie di arch. st. ed arte di V., 1942, pp. 37; 41-43). Another Christian cemetery, probably of the 4th century, 4.5 km. from the city, in the Solluna district, was discovered in 1921. However, it seems that it served rather the Christians of the nearby Manio ad sponsas, on the Via Appia Antica, than those of V. In any case, the very ancient titular of the Cathedral, St. Clement, has been arbitrarily regarded as the evangelizer and proto-bishop of the diocese. But so far the most remote known bishop remains Adeodatus (465).
The diocese of V. was enlarged by the annexation, temporary in Aug. 592 and definitive between the years 870-80, of the episcopal see of Tres Tabernae (v.) and, after 963, by that of the see of Norma, of which only the bishop John is known, present at the Council of Rome in Nov. of that year. To preserve it from barbarian incursions, a bull of Gregory I (Febr. 592) permitted the temporary transfer of the Velletrian episcopal see to the church of S. Andrea in Silice at Castelvecchio, today Le Castella. But it reached the height of its splendor around the year 1150, when, as it seems, by Eugene III it was united to the diocese of Ostia, see of the cardinal dean, a situation that lasted until 5 May 1934.
The prelates of V. belong to the cardinals of the Order of Bishops, and among them are to be remembered: St. Gerald Moroveo (1146), who freed V. from the Saracens; Ugolino de' Conti (Gregory IX); Rinaldo de' Conti (Alexander IV); Pietro da Tarantasia O. P. (Innocent V); Latino Malabranca Orsini (1278), great statesman and diplomat; Niccolò Boccasini O. P. (Benedict XI); Niccolò da Prato (1304), pacifier of Tuscany; Pietro d'Etain (1377), legate of Italy; Guillaume d'Estouteville (1461), to whom the erection of the episcopium is due; Giuliano della Rovere (Julius II), restorer of the Cathedral; Alessandro Farnese (Paul III); Gian Pietro Carafa (Paul IV); Bartolomeo Pacca (v.); Luigi Micara (1844);
Basilio Pompili (1920), who provided the Seminary with a healthful summer retreat, and Clemente Micara (from 1946), who restored the Cathedral, damaged by the aerial bombardments of 1943-44.
There were born, among others: Giovanni da V., meritorious bishop of Florence (1205-30); the painters Andrea Velletrano (14th century), Giovanni (15th century), Luciano (15th century) and Lello (16th century) da V.; Antonio Mancinelli (1462-1505), humanist and disciple of Pomponio Leto; Ruggero Giovannelli (1560-1625), musician and successor of Palestrina; Card. Marzio Ginnetti (1585-1670), diplomat and learned 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 replacement of that of the Gonfirotri, and in competition with the other contemporary ones, and buried by the celebrated Accademia Volsca Veltterna (1765-1839), of European fame; Alessandro Borgia (1731-1804), archbishop of Fermo and friend of L. A. Muratori; Card. Alessandro Borgia, prefect of the Congr. of Propaganda Fide, historian and orientalist; Clemente Cardinali, archaeologist of fine repute; Canon Ignazio Galli, illustrious meteorologist and seismologist, who died in 1920, and Msgr. Attilio Gabrielli (1876-1927), esteemed researcher and popularizer of the 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 of 1500 and Egyptianizing superstructures, was transformed in 1660 and encloses the notable chapel of the Madonna delle Grazie (1637). The adjoining Capitular Museum preserves, among other things, a Madonna and Child by Gentile da Fabriano (1426); a Madonna attributed to Antoniazzo Romano; the fragments of a parchment scroll of an illuminated Exultet, perhaps from the school of Montecassino (11th-12th centuries); the very rich cruciform reliquary of Byzantine art (8th or 9th centuries), donated by Alexander IV, and precious sacred vestments. Also to be noted are the remains of the Teatro della Passione for the representation, from 1499 to 1675, of the Mysteries; the church of S. Maria del Trivio by C. Maderno (1622), with a facade in classical style (1840); the imposing bell tower of 1353 in Romanesque style with double biforas and double single-lancet windows; the monumental Palazzo Ginnetti with the renowned panoramic staircase by Martino Longhi the Elder, destroyed by the war; the Palazzo comunale by G. Della Porta (1575) with a library of great local historical interest; the Bramantesque church of S. Maria del Sangue (17th century); the church of St. Michael the Archangel (12th century); and the church of St. Martin, mentioned in 1665, rebuilt on a Greek cross plan (1772) and with a tetrastyle pronaos on the facade (1825). In the diocese, besides the imposing Cyclopean walls of Norma and Cori, one admires in this city the so-called temple of Hercules; the collegiate church of S. Maria della Pietà, with one of the oldest candlesticks (12th century) for the paschal candle; the small church of the Annunziata (15th century), besides the singular church with cloister of S. Oliva (15th century), and at Ninfa, which witnessed the coronation of Pope Alexander II (1152), the suggestive ruins, medieval and Renaissance, of the town, abandoned in the 17th century.
To the southeast of Cisterna the toponymy recalls the vanished Castle of Tivera (Tiberio), preferred residence of Pope Paschal II. - See pl. CXXI.
Bibliography22 works
st. patria, 71 (1948), pp. 80-108. See also the Bollettino della Associazione veliterna di archeol. storia ed arte*.
Alberto Galietti