Ascoli-Piceno

Diocese comprising sixteen towns in the Province of Ascoli-Piceno, two in that of Aquila, and two in that of Teramo, Italy. It is under the immediate jurisdiction of the Holy See. "Ascoli-Piceno is on of the cities of Italy", says Harnack (Die Mission, etc., Leipzig, 502), "which, because of its importance, we may believe has had a Christian community and a bishopric from the middle of the third century, when at the Synod held by {ln:Pope} Cornelius in Rome sixty bishops were present" (Eus., VI, xliii). The traces of this bishopric, however, do not appear until the fourth century: St. Emidius, martyred under Diocletian; Claudius, present at the Synod of Rimini (Arian Controversy, 359), and, in the fifth century, Lusentius, present at the Synod of Milan which sent the famous letter to {ln:Pope} Leo I (440-461), were Bishops of Ascoli. Worthy of note in Ascoli, from an artistic standpoint, is the baptistery dating from the twelfth century. One of its bishops, Giulio de'Medici, afterwards became {ln:Pope} Clement CII (1523-34). The political importance of his pontificate, during the struggle between Charles V and Francis I is well known. Ascoli-Piceno contain 167 parishes; 305 churches, chapels, and oratories; 206 secular priests; 150 seminarians; 15 regular priests, 6 lay brothers; 126 religious (women); 118 confraternities, and a population of 120,210.