Diocese of Gubbio

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The Italian Catholic diocese of Gubbio is in the province of Perugia, in Umbria, central Italy.

[edit] History

In the eighth century Gubbio became part of the Patrimony of St. Peter, together with the duchy of Spoleto. It was often at war with Perugia, and its victory in 1151 over Perugia and ten other towns is famous. St. Ubaldo, bishop of the city, directed the campaign. Gubbio favoured the Ghibelline party; however, in 1260 the Guelphs surprised the town, and drove out the Ghibellines; who returned again in 1300 under the leadership of Uguccione della Faggiuola, and Federigo da Montefeltro, whereupon Pope Boniface VIII sent his nephew Napoleone Orsini who drove them out once more.

Giovanni Gabrielli, lord of Gubbio, was expelled by Cardinal Albornoz (1354) and the town handed over to a pontifical vicar. In 1381, however, the bishop, Gabriele Gabrielli, succeeded in being appointed pontifical vicar and again, lord of Gubbio.

The earliest known Bishop of Gubbio is Decentius, to whom Innocent I addressed (416) the well-known reply concerning liturgy and church discipline. Gregory the Great (590-604) entrusted to Bishop Gaudiosus of Gubbio the spiritual care of Tadinum, about a mile from the modern Gualdo, which had been long without a bishop of its own.

Arsenius of Gubbio (855) together with Nicholas of Anagni, opposed the election of Pope Benedict III. Other bishops of Gubbio were

St. Rodolfo Gabrielli (1061), honoured for his sanctity by Peter Damian;
St. Giovanni II of Lodi (1105), a monk of Fonte Avellana;
St. Ubaldo (1160), in whose honour a church was built in 1197, which afterwards belonged to the Franciscans;
Teobaldo, a monk of Fonte Avellana, against whom Emperor Frederick Barbarossa set up as anti-bishop one Bonatto;
St. Villano (1206);
Fra Benvenuto (1278), papal legate to restore peace between Alfonso of Castile and Philip III of France.

Cardinal Bembo and Marcello Cervino, afterwards Pope Marcellus II, were also bishops of Gubbio, likewise Alessandro Sperelli (1644), author of many learned works, who restored the cathedral. Gubbio was originally directly subject to the Holy See, but in 1563 became a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Urbino; as a result of the resistance begun by Bishop Mariano Savelli it was not until the eighteenth century that Urbino could exercise metropolitan jurisdiction.