The historical archives of the diocese of Lamezia Terme was a creation of don Pietro Bonacci, former parish priest of S. Teodoro parish, who dedicated many years of his life reorganizing and cataloguing an enormous documentary inheritance that otherwise would have been condemned to neglect and dispersal. Don Bonacci has accomplished an invaluable task for which he deserves the recognition not only of students and researchers but also of all the communities in the diocese, which can now recover in the diocesan archives a great portion of their past. Don Pietro, to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for having opened the way so that we could research the history of the Lamezian territory, has saved from dust and from certain destruction hundreds of documents that he classified and organized in numerous files and folders. In an article that don Bonacci published in the Rivista Storica Calabrese (year VIII, n. 1-4, 1987, p.469-479), he described the diocese’s entire archival patrimony, which also includes documents that have survived from the former diocese of Martirano, which was joined to that of Nicastro in 1818. There follows a synthesis of his article for the convenience of the reader.

Mons. Nicola Berlingieri (1825-1854) Painted on canvas by Edoardo Fiore (1854)

All the documents lying in the archives were collected into 132 folders containing the reports of the bishops of Nicastro and Martirano, pastoral visitations, collections of decrees, and documents regarding the individual parishes, the episcopal refectory, the cathedral chapter, and the seminary. There are also some ancient parchments, old scriptural readings and missals belonging to the cathedral chapter. The diocese of Lamezia Terme is the only one in Calabria to have collected into individual volumes its diocesan reports, be they from Nicastro or Martirano. There are 32 reports of the diocese of Nicastro. The oldest one is from 1588, written by Bishop Clemente Bontadosio (1586-1594). The last one is from 1836, written by Bishop Nicola Berlingieri (1825-1854). In addition, there are photocopies of four reports by Bishop Giacinto Maria Barberi (1854-1881) written in 1859, 1867, 1875, and 1877, and also a report of Bishop Domenico Maria Valenzise (1888-1902) written in 1897. These were found in the Vatican Archives by the late and mourned Father Francesco Russo, author of La Diocesi di Nicastro (CAM, Naples, 1958). The number of reports by the bishops of Martirano, also collected in a volume, come to 39. The oldest, by Bishop Mariano Perbenedetti da Camerino, dates to 1590. To these we add four photocopies from the Vatican Library. Three of these are from Bishop Giacomo Tarsia (1773, 1777, 1791), and one from 1795 is from the last bishop of Martirano, Francesco Antonio Grillo.

Bishop Mons. Giacinto Maria Barberi (1855-1881)

Another important document on the diocesan archives is a Inventarium redditum et onerum beneficiorum civitatis ac dioceses Neocastrum (a full catalogue of the benefices and holdings of the diocese and the town), begun in 1727. It consists of 592 folios, or a total of 1,184 pages. Of particular importance are the pages that report historical information on the cathedral chapter of the diocese, on the parishes, on the religious fraternities, the latter accompanied by a list of all the sources of income and related financial obligations of each of these ecclesiastical communities. The papers on Pastoral Visitations are kept in nine folders. The oldest, in 1642, is from Bishop Tommaso Perrone (1639-1677). One of the most important visitations was by the Apostolic Vistor Paolino Pace, sent by the Holy See to investigate the behavior of the much talked about Bishop Achille Puglia. There are also 12 collections of decrees preserved in the archives. The oldest spans the period 1649 to 1677, and has a large appendix compiled during the second half of the 1700s and updated until the end of the 1800s. In this appendix there is an accurate list of all the benefices of the city and the diocese, as well as the names of the holders spanning over a century. As Don Bonacci writes, the decrees are a precious historical source “because they permit us to know the dates and circumstances regarding the building of certain churches, some parishes, of not a few religious communities, and almost all the religious fraternities.” As for the synods held by the bishops, there are only documents relating to two of them preserved in the archives: one was held by Bishop Barberi in 1858 and the other by Bishop Giovanni Regine in 1911. The synod of 1858 was important because—as Don Bonacci says—it makes us understand the state of the Nicastro diocese at the threshold of Italian unity.

As for Pastoral Letters, the two oldest ones preserved in the archives are both from the 1800s. One was from Bishop Gabriele Papa (1819-1824), and the other from Nicola Berlingieri (1825-1854). There are also all the ones of the 1900s up to the present bishop, Vincenzo Rimedio.

The current Bishop of Nicastro Mons. Vincenzo Rimedio

As many as 62 folders out of 130 contain documents pertaining to the cathedral chapter, the former episcopal refectory, the seminary, and some religious orders. Worthy of final mention is a file of the SS. Annunziata (drawn up in the years 1704-1706), which contains the history of the Dominicans of Nicastro and a list of all the goods that this religious group possessed in the Lamezian territory beginning in the 1600s. We have studied this important document and published it in 1995.
(see V. Villella, Il patrimonio ecclesiastico a Nicastro nel Settecento. Gli stabili e I censi del convento di. S. Domenico in una platea del 1706, in Quaderni Lametini, n. 31, 1995, pp. 59-77).

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