Description : Strongoli is a comune and town with a population of over 6000 people in the province of Crotone, in Calabria, southernmost Italy. In Antiquity, Strongoli was the site of Petelia, said to have been founded by Philoctetes. It is the birthplace of Italian baroque composer Leonardo Vinci. Ecclesiastical History Some historians claim that Ancient Petelia already was a bishopric, established perhaps in 546 or then adopting the city's new medieval name Strongoli, but without solid evidence, and the see in never mentioned in the Byzantine imperial Notitia Episcopatuum of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which most dioceses in Calabria belonged to in the 9th till 11th centuries, so its foundation may rather date from the Normans, probably late 12th century. The first historical record of the Diocese of Strongoli (Curiate Italian) / Strongulen(sis) (Latin adjective) is a papal bulla from Pope Lucius III in 1183, naming it among the suffragans of the Archdiocese of Santa Severina (while confirming the Metropolitan's privileges). The tiny bishopric, comprising solely the municipality of Strongoli, was confined by the Ionian Seaa]], Diocese of Crotone (separated by the river Neto), the Diocese of Umbriatico and its Metropolitan, the Archdiocese of Santa Severina. Its Cathedral was the Church of Peter and Paul (chiesa dei Santi Pietro e Paolo), the episcopal city's only parish. Yet between the 14th and 16th centuries, the diocese harbored a monastery of the Conventual Friars Minor (Santa Maria delle Grazie), an Augustinian convent (Santa Maria del Popolo), a Capuchin monastery (San Francesco d'Assisi) and some fifteen churches and chapels. On 1818.06.27 the see was suppressed, its territory being merged into the then Diocese of Cariati.
See on map »