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Diocese of Cagli e Pergola

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(Calliensis Et Pergulensis)

Situated in Umbria (Italy), in the province of Pesaro, suffragan of Urbino. Cagli is the old Roman colony of Callium. The first known bishop was Gratianus who, in 359, assisted at the Council of Rimini; in 500 we meet the name of Viticanus, present at the council of Rome, held on account of Pope Symmachus; in 751 Anastasius attended the council of Rome held against the Iconoclasts. In 1045 Bishop Luitulphus resigned his see and devoted himself entirely to works of piety. St. Ranieri, a Benedictine, governed Cagli from 1156 to 1175, and was then transferred to Spalato (Dalmatia), where he was killed by some Slavs (1180) for having claimed for the church lands occupied unjustly by them. Bishop Egidio (1243-59) had many controversies with the municipality of Gubbio. Under his successor the Ghibellines revolted against the papal power. After the death of Bishop Jacopo (1276), the Ghibelline canons wished to elect a noble, Berardo Berardi, while the Guelphs elected Rinaldo Sicardi, Abbot of San Pietro di Massa. As a result the see remained vacant for some years. Finally Berardo was made bishop of Osimo, and Sicardi died, whereupon a certain Guglielmo was elected bishop (1285). Civil discords, however, did not cease, and after a terrible massacre, Cagli was burned by its own citizens. It was afterwards rebuilt on the plain of St. Angelo, and Nicholas IV named it St. Angelo of the Pope (S. Angelo papale). Later on, however, the original name of Cagli was substituted. In 1297 the first stone of the cathedral was laid by the Bishop Lituardo Cervati, and in 1398 Niccoló Marciari brought the building to completion. In 1503 the partisans of Caesar Borgia killed the Franciscan bishop Gasparo Golfi. His successor, a Spanish Dominican, Ludovico di Lagoria, was nearly killed by the people. Giovanni Taleoni (1565) introduced the Tridentine reforms; Filippo Bigli (1610) restored the episcopal palace and governed with great wisdom; Bishop Bertozzi (1754) built the seminary. Mention should also be made of the pious and zealous Alfonso Cingari (1807-17). In 1817 Pergola which had been in the Diocese of Urbino was raised to the rank of an episcopal city and united to the See of Cagli. The diocese contains 30,000 Catholics with 51 parishes, 102 churches and chapels, 102 secular, and 8 regular priests. It has 9 religious houses, among them the celebrated Camaldolese Abbey of Fonte Avellana. At an earlier period the Benedictine monasteries of San Geronzio, founded about 700, and San Pietro della Massa, founded in 850, were very famous.