VENTIMIGLIA, DIOCESE OF. — It has an area of 715.50 km², with 101,000 inhabitants, of whom 155 are non-Catholics. It comprises 82 parishes and one autonomous vicariate; 254 churches and oratories.
The origins of the diocese of Ventimiglia are linked to the monastery of Lerino, on the Provençal coast. When, in the 13th century, Ventimiglia fell under Genoese conquest and the County of Ventimiglia was divided between Genoa and Provence (Treaty of Aix, 1261), the bishop retained unaltered jurisdiction over the territory of various states and lordships (Genoa and Provence until 1388; then Genoa and Piedmont, as well as the Marquisate of Dolceacqua and the Principality of Monaco). The bishop thus found himself in a delicate position, and amid rival powers long maintained the spiritual unity of the diocesan territory. The most notable repercussion of the centrifugal forces at work within the diocese occurred during the Western Schism, when Ventimiglia, along with the parishes subject to Genoa, remained faithful to the Roman Pope, while an episcopal see was created at Sospello by the Avignon antipopes for the territory under Angevin rule, with its own bishops from 1360 to 1411. Once the unity of the diocese was restored, the bishops of Ventimiglia often exercised a balancing and pacifying role in relations between neighboring states, though they did not escape the consequences of the struggle between Genoa and the House of Savoy, especially in the 18th century, until the French Revolution.
In 1802 the diocese was dismembered, with the western half of its territory (formerly belonging to Savoy and now ceded to France) being assigned to the Diocese of Nice; it was reduced to just 15 parishes and faced the danger of suppression. In 1806 it was also detached from the Milanese Church, of which it had remained a suffragan, and assigned to the Archdiocese of Aix. However, in 1820, after the fall of Napoleon, the diocese was reassigned to the Archdiocese of Genoa and then reconstituted in 1831 in a new form, with the return of the parishes of the Nervia Valley and the assignment of a large territory taken from the neighboring Diocese of Albenga (Sanremo and Taggia, with the entire Argentina Valley and its surroundings), in compensation for the parishes lost to the west to the permanent advantage of Nice. Tenda and Briga were returned in 1886, having remained Italian after the annexation of Nice to France; they were again detached in favor of Nice in 1947.
V. BISHOPS AND DISTINGUISHED FIGURES
The series of bishops of Ventimiglia is uncertain and incomplete until the 12th century, due to the general scarcity of documents from the early Middle Ages: those inserted by local historians between 680 and 1045 are doubtful or apocryphal. The series becomes continuous from Bishop Cornelio, who in 1146 intervened in a dispute between the Chapter and the monks of San Michele. Special mention should be made of: Benedetto Boccanegha (1382–1409), who struggled strenuously to preserve the prestige and unity of the diocese during the Schism; the Milanese Carlo Visconti (1562–65), who took part in the Council of Trent and was one of the first bishops to establish a seminary in his diocese (1564); Monsignor Francesco Galbiati of Pontremoli (1573–1600), a disciple and intimate of Cardinal Borromeo, who dedicated himself to restoring the prestige of Catholicism against the Reformation, which had taken particular hold in the mountainous areas of the diocese; Monsignor Mauro Promontorio (1654–85), who displayed great religious activity and at the same time intervened repeatedly in disputes between Genoa and the Duchy of Savoy; Monsignor Domenico Clavarini (1775–97), who courageously opposed the outrages of the French revolutionaries and died of grief as a result. Among more recent figures, mention should also be made of Monsignor Giovanni Battista De Alberts (1831–36), Monsignor Lorenzo Battista Biale (1837–77), Monsignor Tommaso Reggio (1877–93), and Monsignor Ambrogio Daffra (1893–1932), all men of high culture and outstanding piety, who contributed to improving the fortunes of a diocese mutilated by political events and to reconstituting religious and spiritual unity in a new form.V. has also given the Church several blessed in the 15th and 16th centuries: the Blessed Guglielmo of V., a Franciscan, who died around 1430; the Blessed Serafino of Castiglione, also a Franciscan, who died in the same year; and the Blessed Tommaso Stridonio, a Franciscan who died in 1520. Also worthy of note are Father Agostino of V., a Capuchin who became famous during the plague in Genoa in 1579, and finally Father Angelico Aprosio, an Augustinian and celebrated 17th-century man of letters, who in 1647 founded in Ventimiglia the first library of the Giuria, the Aprosiana Library, which still bears his name.
Ventimiglia, Diocese of – Façade of the Cathedral (11th–12th centuries, 13th century) with Baroque bell tower – Ventimiglia.
III. MONUMENTS AND SANCTUARIES
The Cathedral is of Lombard origin; the current structures date from the 11th and 12th centuries, with later adaptations (it was restored externally in 1950); it is located at the center of the medieval city, together with the Baptistery (11th century) and the church of San Michele (11th–12th century), a Romanesque building of great importance also for its history. The basilica of San Siro in Sanremo (14th century, on earlier Romanesque structures) has become a co-cathedral; it is the center of the newer part of the diocese, detached from the See of Albenga. It was once the seat of a "corpeiscopo," dependent on the Archbishop of Genoa, in the 6th–8th centuries, and is linked to the memories of Sts. Siro and Romulus, bishops of Genoa.The main sanctuaries are also in the newly acquired part of the diocese: the Sanctuary-Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Bussana; the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Hill in Sanremo; the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Guard in Sanremo; and especially the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lampedusa near Taggia, founded in the 17th century for a vow made by a shipwrecked sailor who had come from the island of Lampedusa. The loss of the ancient northern territory deprived the diocese of two other highly venerated sanctuaries: Our Lady of Poggio at Saorgio and Our Lady of the Fountain at Briga Marittima.
The convent of San Domenico in Taggia is the major center of monastic culture, with a notable artistic heritage, including the principal works of the most distinguished Ligurian painter of the 15th century, Ludovico Brea.