Mapping the Church and Asceticism in Ostrogothic Italy 485
sees whose first mention is found in the letters of the Roman bishop Gregory
(590–604). In fact inscriptions from the 4th century confirm the activity of
the bishops of Clusium in Umbria, Taurianum in Calabria, and Blanda Iulia in
Basilicata,24 dioceses once attested only by Gregory the Great.25
Moreover, the establishment of rural dioceses was a peculiarity of southern
Italy. In modern Puglia, of the thirty cities that developed during the impe
rial age,26 only thirteen had become dioceses within the first years of the
5th century.27 Two vici must be added to these, Carmeianum (Gargano) and
Turenum (Trani), which became episcopal sees at the end of the 5th century,28
revealing the strong vitality of the rural environment. The process followed
by Turenum is well known: initially it emerged as a rural bishopric, breaking
away from Canosa;29 then it acquired the institutional dimensions of a civi-
tas, thanks to the continuous residence of its bishop and his performance of
various functions.30 The development of the vicus of Trapeia (Tropea) on the
Tyrrhenian Sea was not different. The organizational centre of its ecclesiasti
cal possessions (massa Trapeiana) was endowed with an ecclesia cathedralis,
a bishop or administrator of the Christian community. This collection of
24 Inscriptiones Christianae Italiae Septimo Saeculo Antiquiores (cited hereafter as ICI) 7, no.
2, ed. Mennella, pp. 16–18 (on Lucius Petronius Dexter, bishop of Clusium during the 4th
century); ICI 7, no. 45 (on Florentinus, bishop of Clusium during the 6th century); ICI 5,
no. 8, ed. Buonocore, pp. 13–14 (on Leucosius of Taurianum, 4th century); ICI 5, no. 52 (on
Iulianus of Blanda Iulia).
25 Ecclesius of Clusium and Paulinus of Taurianum are mentioned by Gr. Magn., Ep. 10.13,
11.3, and 9.135, ed. Norberg, pp. 839–40, 861, and 684–5. Romanus of Blanda Iulia was
present at the Roman council of 595; see Gr. Magn., Ep. 5.57a, ed. EwaldL.M. Hartmann,
pp. 362–6.
26 See Marazzi in this volume; cf. Silvestrini, Le città della Puglia romana..
27 Otranto, Italia meridionale, pp. 129–34.
28 Their bishops were present at the Roman councils of 501 and 502 (Acta Synhodorum
habitarum Romae a. DII, ed. Mommsen, pp. 434; 437; 453). On the relationships between
rural Carmeianum’s bishopric and the archeological site of San Giusto, located between
Aeca and Lucera, see Volpe (ed.), San Giusto, pp. 331–8; Volpe, “L’iniziativa vescovile nella
trasformazione dei paesaggi urbani e rurali in Apulia”, pp. 414–19.
29 On Canosa’s bishop Sabinus, probably a member of the embassy which Pope John I led
to Constantinople in 525/526, see R. Cessi, “Un vescovo pugliese del secolo VI”, pp. 1153–
- Sabinus was a subscriber at the Roman council of 531, which dealt with issues sur
rounding the metropolitan of Larissa. See Blaudeau, “Un point de contact entre Collectio
Avellana et Collectio Thessalonicensis?”, pp. 1–11. He was likewise part of the mission that
Pope Agapetus promoted in Constantinople in 535: Otranto, Per una storia dell’Italia tar-
doantica, pp. 164–8.
30 Otranto, Italia meridionale, pp. 248–51.