Roman Catholic Suburbicarian Diocese of Albano

Suburbicarian Diocese of Albano
Albanensis

Albano Laziale Cathedral
Location
Country Italy
Ecclesiastical province Rome
Statistics
Area 661 km2 (255 sq mi)
Population
- Total
- Catholics		 (as of 2006)
461,000
412,420 (89.5%)
Parishes 78
Information
Denomination Catholic Church
Rite Roman Rite
Established 4th century
Cathedral Basilica Cattedrale di S. Pancrazio Martire
Current leadership
Pope Francis
Bishop Marcello Semeraro
Emeritus Bishops Dante Bernini
Paolo Gillet (Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus)
Map
Website
www.webdiocesi.chiesacattolica.it

The Diocese of Albano (Latin: Albanensis) is a suburbicarian see of the Roman Catholic Church in a diocese in Italy, comprising seven towns in the Province of Rome. Albano Laziale is situated some 15 kilometers from Rome, on the Appian Way.

Under current arrangements it has both a titular bishop and a diocesan bishop.

Early history

In the very year of his consulate, Acilius Glabrio was compelled by Domitian to fight, unarmed, in the amphitheatre at Albano, a Numidian bear, according to Juvenal:[1] an enormous lion, according to Dio Cassius.[2] This same Acilius Glabrio is later included in a Christian group of the Flavian family as a molitor rerum novarum.[3] The Liber Pontificalis under the name Silvester[4] says:

fecit basilicam Augustus Constantinus in civitate Albanensis, videlicet S. Joannis Baptistae.[5]

This basilica of the time of Constantine was destroyed by fire toward the end of the 8th century or in the beginning of the ninth[6] Franconi has established[7] the identity of this basilica with the present Albano Cathedral, which still contains some remains of the edifice dedicated by Pope Leo III to Saint Pancras. Under the basilica there was a crypt, or confessio, from which bodies were transferred to the cemetery nearby.

The foundation of the episcopal see of Albano is very probably contemporaneous with the erection of the Constantinian basilica. However, the first bishop of the see of whom we have any knowledge is Dionysius (d. 355). It is more than a century later (463) that we meet with another Bishop of Albano, Romanus. To these is to be added Ursinus, whose name is found on an inscription in the Catacomb of Domitilla. The consular date is either 345 or 395. The importance of this early Christian community is apparent from its cemetery, discovered in 1720 by Marangoni. It differs but little from the Christian cemeteries found in Rome. Its plan, clearly mapped out in the Epitome de locis ss. martyrum quae sunt foris civitatis Romae, is considered by Giovanni Battista de Rossi as the synopsis of an ancient description of the cemeteries, written before the end of the 6th century:

per eandem vere viam (Appiam) pervenitur ad Albanam civitatem et per eandem civitatem ad ecclesiam S. Senatoris ubi et Perpetua jacet corpore et innumeri sancti et magna mirabilia ibidem geruntur.

The saints here named are not known. Saint Senator of Albano is inserted without further explanation in the martyrology for 26 September (et in Albano Senatoris). From this he passed to the Roman martyrology, where he is commemorated on the same day. But the first account of the martyrs of Albano is found in the Almanac of Philocalus (4th century) on 8 August:

VI Idus aug. Carpophori, Victorini et Severiani, Albano, et Ostense septimo ballistaria, Cyriaci, Largi, Crescentiani, Memmiae, Julianae, et Smaragdi.

The cemetery has frescoes, painted at various times by unknown artists, which show the progress of Christian art from the fourth to the 9th century.

List of bishops

0-1000

1000-1200

1200-1400

1400-1600

1600-1800

1800-2000

Since 1966 functions are divided between the titular-bishop and the diocesan bishop.

Diocesan bishops

Titular bishops

From 2000

Diocesan bishops

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Sat. IV, 99
  2. ↑ Hist. Rom., LXVI, iii.
  3. ↑ Suet. D. 10.
  4. ↑ ed. Duchesne, Paris, 1886, I, 185.
  5. ↑ Harnack, "Die Mission", Leipzig, 1902, p. 501.
  6. ↑ Lib. Pont., Leo III; ed. Duchesne, II, 32.
  7. ↑ La catacomba e la basilica Constantiniana di Albano Laziale, Rome, 1877.
  8. ↑ Sources for the period 1015-1130: Klewitz, p. 33, 116 and 120; and Hüls, p. 88-98
  9. ↑ Some sources mention cardinal Basilius ca.1072/73 but his existence has not been ascertained (cf. Klewitz, p. 116 note 1).
  10. ↑ Some sources mention cardinal Anastasio ca. 1114 but Klewitz, p. 120 no. 7 has proven that this resulted from a confusion
  11. ↑ Sources for the period 1130-1189: Brixius, p. 134, and Zenker, p. 32-39
  12. ↑ Source for the period 1189-1230: Maleczek, p. 63
  13. ↑
  14. ↑ The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church - Biographical Dictionary - Consistory of November 20, 1551

External links

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton. 

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