VICENZA, Diocese of. - The city, crossed by the Bacchiglione and the Retrone, which divides the center of ancient Berga (Berica), is the capital of a vast province (2,722.36 sq. km.), extending for the most part through the region of the hills and the Prealps, and is an episcopal see, suffragan of Venice. The boundaries of the province reflect the numerous changes that occurred in various eras, especially after the year 1000, while those of the diocese substantially mirror the territorial circumscription of the Lombard Duchy. The diocese (2,151 sq. km.) has 308 parishes with 702 secular priests, 194 regulars and 602,000 faithful.
I. HISTORY
The first inhabitants of the Vicentino of whom there is any record were the Euganei, perhaps mingled with groups of Italics, on whom the discovery of the pile dwellings of Fimon and of the necropolis of Angarano in the Bassanese has shed some light. Between the end of the 8th and the beginning of the 7th century, the Euganei, overpowered by the Veneti, a people of Illyrian origin with their main center at Atheste (Este), were driven toward the mountains where, probably, they formed the 34 oppida of the Euganeae gentes of which Cato speaks, cited by Pliny (Nat. hist., III, 24). The Veneti, probable founders of V., had to withstand the continuous onslaught first of the Etruscans and then of the Gauls. In the first half of the 3rd century B.C., the Romans occupied the small domain of the Veneti, and V., as a municipium (modicae municipio vires, says Tacitus), was attached to the Menenian tribe. Archaeology has made possible a fairly reliable reconstruction of the civitas and of the urbs, endowed, especially in the times of the Empire, with palaces with mosaic floors, aqueducts, bridges, the Berga theater, and governed by quattuorviri iure dicundo with its Collegia, among them that of the Centonarii.
The first Christian community came to be organized, from the 4th century onward, around the tomb of Sts. Felix and Fortunatus (v.), natives of Vicenza by tradition, and martyred at Aquileia. An inscription, assigned by G. B. De Rossi to the Constantinian period, and the fruitfully conducted excavations have demonstrated the existence of a chapel in the first half of the 4th century and of a great basilica at the end of the 4th or beginning of the 5th century, when, in all probability, V. became a diocese suffragan to Aquileia; but Horontius (590), the first certain bishop, appears only during the struggle of the "Three Chapters." Under the Lombards V. was the seat of one of the 36 duchies; but there is a complete lack of information about the bishops of the Lombard period, and only with the 8th-9th century is the regular succession of bishops known: Reginald (808), Andrew (820) and Franco, who took part in the Council of Mantua (827). After the general ecclesiastical decadence that accompanied the decline of the Carolingian Empire, Bishop Rudolph (967), having rebuilt the church and monastery of St. Felix, destroyed by the Hungarians (899), also attempted at V. a reform on the example of Ratherius of Verona and Atto of Vercelli. Since a diploma is false by which Bishop Jerome, with a privilege of Otto III (1001), would have been invested with the comitatus over the city and territory, until then held by the Counts, perhaps the chronicle of Paglierini (15th century) may be closer to the truth, which suggests that such comital investiture took place in the last decades of the 11th century, that is, during the investiture struggle, in which Bishop Ezzelino favored the imperial policy. In any case it is certain that his successor Torengo, holding the "imperium of the city and having many citizens opposed to him," had to sustain a long struggle that ended only when the bishop resigned himself to giving up that authority which belonged to the Vicentini. This was the beginning of a painful and interminable chain of intestine wars of the Commune, where in 1122 the consulate was already instituted (the first election of a foreign podestà dates back to 1175) against the rights of the bishop and against the feudal nobility in general.
In the struggle for the defense of ecclesiastical rights two great bishops met their death: the bl. C. Cacciafronte (1179-84) and Pistore (1184-1203). Once the whirlwind of the tyranny of Ezzelino "qui bona quasi potentium omnium nequiter publicavit" had passed, the conflict between Commune and bishop over the tithe on crops flared up again. The bl. Bartholomew of Breganze imposed himself by his extraordinary personal gifts, but under his successor B. Nicelli the situation worsened, and neither the severe decrees of the provincial Council held by the patriarch Raymond in 1282, nor excommunications and interdicts upon the city, nor the influence of the bl. R. Concorreggi, nor finally a long trial conducted in the Roman Curia between Commune and bishop, could spare the latter the almost complete ruin of the rich ecclesiastical patrimony. And it cannot be asserted that the motive of so many struggles, often degenerated into acts of true hatred and bloodshed against the clergy, with the tacit favor of iniquitous statutes (only a fine of a few soldi for whoever killed a priest), was the poor religious life of the ecclesiastics. The inevitable shortcomings were sought to be remedied by Bishop Sperandio (1315-21) with his Statuta Synodalia (still unpublished), in which are reported the constitutions issued in the provincial Councils of Aquileia under the patriarchs Raymond and Ottobono, to reform the morals of the clergy and the people. Meanwhile the beneficial influence exercised among the population by the Franciscans and Dominicans had been added. This pre-Tridentine reform movement aroused, especially in the 15th century, a veritable nursery of confraternities, in whose climate one of the pioneers of the holy cause was formed: St. Cajetan Thiene (v.).
This reform, officially begun under Bishop Matteo Priuli (1565-79), who had attended the Council of Trent and to whom belongs the merit of having founded the Seminary, had its full realization under his successors Michele Priuli and the two Delfino, whose work is attested by the numerous registers of the pastoral visitations. The political upheavals of the last century found on the Vicentine see the bishops Marco Zaguri and Giuseppe Cappellari; the name of the latter is particularly linked to the construction of the present Seminary. Msgr. Ferdinando Rodolfi, bishop from 1911 to 1943, left wide renown for his many-sided pastoral activity during the First World War, for the construction of many churches, for the development of the liturgical reform and sacred chant, for the Seminary and assistance to emigrants and Catholic Action.
Bibliography13 works
II. ART
Of particular historical and artistic importance is the monumental complex of S. Felice, which scholars attribute to a period between 310-20 and 460-70. A first church of modest proportions was built between 330 and 350, of which a large part of the votive floor mosaic still remains. It was followed between 380 and the early years of the 400s by a great basilica (almost 90 m. long) with an atrium, narthex, majestic entrance, columns of Greek and Oriental marble, mosaics, frescoes, etc. It was destroyed, as the anonymous biographer of Bishop Theodoric of Metz and the chronicler Sigebert of Gembloux affirm, by the Hungarians in the year 899. Rebuilt by Bishop Rodolfo in the last decades of the 10th century and in part, after the earthquake of 1117, it substantially withstood all later remodellings. In recent years it has been almost completely restored and freed from its Baroque masking.
No small surprise was caused to scholars by the excavations in the subsoil of the Cathedral, barely risen from the ruins of the recent war. It became certain that a building of the classical era had stood there. Indeed, the remains of two Roman constructions have appeared, lying respectively at m. 1.35 and m. 0.85 from the bases of the pillars of the 8th-century church, and the more recent of the two would present the characteristics of a public building (perhaps a basilica or a market). At cm. 20 below the bases of the aforesaid pillars a mosaic was found with a votive inscription, certainly Christian, on whose dating judgment is divided. In any case it seems established that between the 4th and 6th centuries a church arose there, and the secondary titular saint, St. Euphemia, still preserved, would incline toward the 5th-6th century as the date of construction. The sacred building was rebuilt around the 8th century, and the titular saint, St. Mary, if she did not already exist, would suggest as the more probable date for such a construction the period immediately following the end of the Aquileian schism and the total conversion of the Lombards to Catholicism.
In the 14th century four Gothic-style churches arose in V.: S. Lorenzo, S. Corona, S. Michele and S. Bartolomeo, of which the first two still remain. Built on the ruins of one of the primitive city chapels, granted by the Canons to the Franciscans in 1280, S. Lorenzo, with its magnificent portal and its artistic sepulchral monuments, was rightly called the S. Croce of V. S. Corona was built in 1260 by Bishop Bl. Bartolomeo, called da Breganze, to house the relic of the crown of thorns of the Savior, which the Blessed received as a gift from St. Louis IX of France. The church of S. Agostino in the coltura of S. Felice, with notable frescoes of the Emilian school, belongs to the 14th century. Its origin, however, is certainly more ancient and, in all probability, is coeval with those numerous little churches that arose in the territory between the 8th and 10th centuries and of which the following remain substantially preserved: S. Martino di Ponte del Marchese, S. Zeno di Costabissara, S. Maria in Favrega, S. Michele di Caldogno, S. Giorgio di Angarano, S. Benedetto and S. Vito di Marostica, S. Bartolomeo sul Brenta, S. Niccolò di Pianezze, S. Martino di Schio, S. Martino di Brogliano, SS. Filippo e Giacomo di Longara, S. Giustina di Sossano, S. Vito di Lovertino, S. Maria Etiopissa di Polegge, S. Silvestro and S. Giorgio di V. Of the ancient parish churches, that of S. Maria in Colle di Bassano del Grappa still preserves some element of its primitive construction, where in the late 1300s the beautiful church of S. Francesco also arose, restored to its original state a few years ago. The construction of the church of S. Rocco (1485) draws its inspiration from the Renaissance style of Lorenzo da Bologna and, perhaps, of Rocco da Vicenza. Palladio (v.) did not leave great religious monuments in V. as in other cities: nevertheless his original and modern interpretation of classical architecture, followed substantially by Scamozzi (1548-1616) and by others down to the 19th century, exercised a great influence also in religious art. The Paduan architect Frigimelica (1653-1732) gave V. the beautiful church of S. Gaetano, which does not look at all out of place beside the Ca' d'oro. Also worthy of representing its era is the church of the Filippini, the work of G. Massari and O. Calderari (1730-1804). Among the principal monuments of sculpture there should be remembered, besides the portal of S. Lorenzo (14th century), the altar of S. Giovanni at S. Corona, the portal of the former church of S. Marcello and the statues of the Albanese brothers (16th century), and of Orazio Marinali, of Bassano (18th century). The beautiful Madonnas of Bartolomeo Montagna, of Veronese, of Tiepolo, and the paintings of Battista da V., Giovanni Buonconsiglio, of Tintoretto, of Fogolino and of Francesco Maffei, to recall the most representative names, still adorn the churches of the city or are found in the city Museum. Of the highest value are the 14th-century wall paintings of S. Agostino, the frescoes of the church of S. Rocco, the fresco of the decollation of St. Paul, by Montagna, at S. Lorenzo, besides the Tiepolesque frescoes of the various villas of Vicenza. Among the many works that adorn the temple of S. Corona, particular mention should be made of: the altarpiece of the Baptism of Jesus by Giambellino, the St. Mary Magdalene by Mantegna and the Adoration of the Magi by Veronese.
The confraternity of S. Nicola erected (16th century) the oratory of S. Nicola, reduced (mid-17th century) to a veritable picture gallery by F. Maffei and G. Carpioni, who also worked in the other gallery of 17th-century Vicentine painting: the church of S. Giacomo.
Music too boasts a glorious tradition, and in the musical chapel of the Cathedral, of which there are documented records from the beginning of the 16th century, there served pre Nicolò Vicentino (Nicolaus de Vicentinis), inventor of an archicembalo and archiorgano, and pre Leon Leoni, whose sacred and madrigal compositions still await the patient work of the musicologist.
Among the cultural resources, besides the civic Library and the Museum with its adjoining picture gallery of ca. 400 paintings, deserved mention belongs to the Library of the Seminary with ca. 35,000 vols. and precious incunabula; the Capitular Archive and that of the Curia with a collection of feudal codices, from the 12th to the 19th century. Noteworthy is the most flourishing art of printing in the 15th century in V., where in 1476 there appeared, under the care of the printer L. Achates of Basel, the 2nd ed. of the Vulgate with a text drawn directly from the codices.
Bibliography14 works
III. SANCTUARY OF MONTE BERICO
The first small Gothic-style church, whose facade is still preserved, was opened on Aug. 25, 1428, following two apparitions of the Virgin to donna Vincenza Pasini. A plan for enlargement presented by Palladio in 1576 did not come to fruition, and the architect C. Borella, between 1687 and 1702, built the present Baroque basilica. The temple, with the venerated image of the Madonna, attributed to the sculptor Antonino da Venezia, with the canvases by Bartolomeo Montagna and Veronese (in the adjoining convent of the Servants of Mary) and with the three facades adorned with stairways and statues by O. Marinali, represents for Vicenza, and not only for Vicenza, the heart of all religious life (cf. S. Rumor, Il santuario di Monte Berico, Vicenza 1926).
IV. ILLUSTRIOUS FIGURES
In the first half of the 13th century, the Dominican friar Bl. Giovanni da V. (c. 1200-c. 1260), better known as Giovanni da Schio, carried out his reforming and pacifying work in the cities of central-northern Italy. The reform movement began at the assembly of 23 Aug. 1233 at Paquara, near Verona, where before a great multitude of ecclesiastics and laymen peace was sworn among the majority of the communes of central-northern Italy. Although its success was ephemeral, that peace movement answered a real need of the populations by then exasperated by so many hatreds and discords.
Antonio Loschi, b. at V. (d. 1441), a good Latinist and writer, secretary, notary and abbreviator of the Curia, from 1406 until his death; particularly dear to Popes Alexander V (Pietro Filargi, formerly bishop of V.) and to John XXIII, who wanted him as notary at the Council of Constance. They won renown at Rome between 1450 and 1550: Leonardo Nogarola (1476), created apostolic protonotary by Sixtus IV, philosopher and theologian; the nuncios Lionello Chieregato of Concordia (v.), a familiar of Card. Marco Barbo; Francesco Chieregato, bishop of Teramo, sent to Germany (v.); Girolamo Bencucci (1481-1533), commonly called da Schio, secretary of Card. Regino and then bishop of Vaison, apostolic nuncio at Barcelona (1527-1530) and at the Diet of Augsburg (1530); Girolamo Gualdo (1492-1566), apostolic protonotary and founder of the Gualdo museum of V. The Jesuit from Vicenza Fr. Luigi Sodiro (1836-1909) enjoyed a reputation as a great naturalist; for thirty-eight years a missionary in Ecuador, where he was engaged by the president of the Republic, Garcia Moreno, as teacher of botany at the University of Quito. His studies on the vascular cryptogams of Quito and on the Ecuadorian flora made him famous among the most eminent scholars, so much so that in 1898 the French botanist C. De Candolle published a work entitled: Piperaceae Sodirianae. The ecclesiastical as well as civil history of V. had in recent times two passionate devotees in the two librarians of the city Library: D. Bortolan (1850-1928) and S. Rumor (1862-1929). - See pl. CXLI.
