VENAFRO. - Ancient diocese and city in the province of Campobasso, situated on the slopes of Monte Croce.
It was inhabited in very ancient times by Oscan-Samnites; it flourished in the Roman age; Augustus established there a colony of veterans, whence its designation as colonia Iulia Augusta Venafrum. In the valley there survive the ruins of a theater and an amphitheater. The Lombards instituted there a gastald dependent on the duke of Benevento; then in the 10th century it was a county; later it became a fief of the Pandona, the Peretti, the Savelli, the Caracciolo, the Miranda. Protectors of the city were the holy martyrs Nicander, Marcian and Daria. The first two are attributed by a Passio to V. (BHL, 6073), whereas the Hieronymianum gives them as martyrs of Dorostorum in Moesia (P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, Note agiografiche, IV [Studi e testi, 24], Rome 1912, pp. 141-157). The first bishop was, it seems, Constantius at the end of the 5th century; while the see was vacant between 591-95 (Jaffé-Wattembach, 1135, 1190). The first diocesan synod was celebrated by bishop V. Martinelli on 21 Sept. 1634. The Cathedral, dedicated to Mary Most Holy, built with Roman remains, has three naves; it was afflicted by the earthquake of 1349 and by fire in 1356. It was reconsecrated in 1764 by Msgr. Stabile. Pope Benedict XIV by a brief of 1743 granted privileges to the canons. For statistical data v. ISERNIA, with which it has been united since 1852.
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Enrico Josi