VEROLI, DIOCESI di. — In Lazio, in the province of Frosinone, it covers an area of 451 sq. km., lying between the dioceses of Ferentino, Alatri, Aquino, Sora, and Pontecorvo. The population of 98,700 inhabitants is divided among 45 parishes, with 82 secular and 84 regular priests, and 11 male and 25 female congregations. It has its major seminary at Anagni, shared with the other dioceses of lower Lazio, and its minor seminary in V. It is immediately
subject to the Holy See, with the court of appeal at the vicariate of Rome (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 445).
V. is the Hernican Verulae of the Romans, built on the crest of a hill overlooking the plain below as far as the Monti Lepini. It was a Roman municipium, later devastated by the barbarians, until Pope Zaccaria annexed it to the nascent Papal State.
The Christian religion at V., particularly according to local historians, was considered until the nineteenth century to have been preached in the apostolic age by the Prince of the Apostles, who was said to have ordained a certain Mauro bishop there. This was supplemented by the presence of s. Maria Salome, together with that of the alleged martyrs Biagio and Demetrio under Nero. Nothing could be more fanciful. The letters MISV on the stone covering the relics of the aforementioned alleged martyrs were interpreted as: «Mariam Iacobi Salomem videbis». Regarding the relics found at V. in the last years of the twelfth century, F. Lanzoni has a well-founded suspicion that they may belong to the celebrated martyrs Biagio of Sebaste and Demetrio of Thessalonica. The oldest Christian inscription discovered in the diocese of V., at Fabriteria Nova (La Civita, near S. Giovanni in Carico), dates from 392 (CIL, X, II, 5646). This is not meant to deny the possibility of evangelical preaching at V. in the pre-Constantinian age, especially in view of the consular road that crosses the diocese. Likewise, since no bishop is known at the see of V. before 743, when Martino signed the Roman Synod convened by Zaccaria, this is not meant to exclude an earlier existence of the see. L. Duchesne therefore rightly judged it to predate the Lombard invasion. Another inscription found in the cathedral itself at V., perhaps earlier than the sixth century, recalls a «Marturius presbyter» (CIL, X, II, 5799), and another, discovered more recently, bears the date 405. Gelasius I, moreover, in one of his letters of 494–95, delegated the bishops Rufino and Giusto to deal with a case between the «honorati et primari Verulanae civitatis» and Agnello, who had insulted them. The Pope does not specify the sees of the two bishops, who most probably belonged to Lazio, and it cannot be ruled out that one of them had been bishop of V. Nor can it be ruled out that «Marturius presbyter» and «Agnellus diaconus» belonged to the diocese of V.
The cathedral of V. dates back to the eighth century but preserves its eleventh- to twelfth-century structure behind an eighteenth-century façade. It has an interesting Treasury and an Archive containing more than 1,200 parchments from the ninth century onward. The church of S. Erasmo is likewise Romanesque; together with the adjoining monastery, it first belonged to the Benedictines and then passed to the Canons, who established their collegiate church there. It too has a fine Treasury and parchments from the eleventh century. In 1170 Alexander III founded at V. church
of S. Maria Maddalena, which in 1423 passed into the ownership of the church of S. Erasmo. Documents originating from V. Rome. The famous abbey of Casamari is also in the diocese of V. (v.). F. Ughelli, M. De Matthias, and G. Cappelletti claimed that the city of Frosinone (since 1927 the provincial capital) had once also been an episcopal see, thereby lending support to a constant and obstinate tradition of Frosinone, which nevertheless lacked the merit of antiquity. Monuments and documents offer not the slightest support for their assertion. On the contrary, it is clearly inferred from the privileges of the episcopal see of V. Campagna. The town of Ceprano, at the extreme south of the diocese of V., frequently mentioned in medieval history, was regarded as the gateway closing the Patrimony of S. Peter, which extended from Acquapendente to Ceprano.