The Diocese of Asti () is a Latin diocese of the Catholic Church in Piedmont, northern Italy, centered in the city of Asti. It has been a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Turin since 1515. Previous to that, it was a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Milan.
The diocese lost territory in 1175, when the diocese of Alessandria was created. It lost a considerable amount of its ancient territory when the diocese of Mondovì was established in 1388 by Urban VI. It lost territory again when the diocese of Casale was created in 1474, and again in 1511 at the creation of the diocese of Saluzzo. In 1592 the diocese of Fossano was assigned more of Asti's territory.
History
There has been some controversy as to the beginning of the Diocese of Asti and the episcopate of St. Evasius, once placed by some at much earlier dates. The diocese of Asti itself fixes the beginning of the diocese in the 5th century.
Scholars have suggested that more than one figure came to melt into the tale of St. Evasius, thus making it extremely difficult to use the existing material as an historical source. The situation is so confused that some historians list five different Saint Evasiuses. Lanzoni notes a purported Evasius in 261, another in 364, a third in 389, a fourth in 419, and the fifth in the time of King Liutprand (712–744). A catalogue of bishops of Asti, written in 1606, assigns him a date of 783.
The first known bishop of Asti was Pastor in 451. Bishop Audax (904-926) obtained the confirmation of the liberties of the Church of Asti from King Berengarius, and was a friend of Rudolph of Burgundy. He sought to have hisCanons called "cardinals", as they were at S, Eusebio in Vercelli.
The bishops of Asti were feudatory vassals of the Holy Roman Empire and of the Counts (Dukes) of Savoy. In turn, they were feudal overlords of fiefs belonging to Corveglia, Castellinaldo, Montaldo Roero, Monteu Roero, Piea, Monticelli, Pocapaglia, Govone, Vezza, Cellarengo, S. Vittoria, S. Stefano Roero, Piobesi, Magliano, Cossombrato, Castagnito. and Castellino de Voltis.
Also subject to the Bishop of Asti were the abbeys of Santi Apostoli, S. Anastasio, and S. Cristoforo in the city of Asti, S. Bartolomeo de Azano, and S. Dalmazio de Pedona. The bishops had also been given the monastery of S. Maria de Caramania in the diocese of Turin by Pope Calixtus II (1119–1124). There was a house of the Knights Templar in Asti, called the Domus Hospitalis Soldani, as early as 1182; it belonged to the Lombard province and came to an end, along with the Templars, in 1312.
In the 14th century, the city of Asti became subject to the Kings of Naples, and then to the Visconti of Milan. Galeozzo Visconti gave Asti to Louis of Valois, Duke of Orleans, son of King Charles V of France. Asti became part of the French kingdom until it was handed over to the Duchy of Savoy in 1575.
The French Republic and Napoleonic Empire
During the French occupation, between 1802 and 1805, Piedmont was annexed to metropolitan France and divided into six departments: Ivrea or Doire (Dora), Marengo, Po or Eridan, Sofia, Stura, and Tanaro. Asti was made the capital of the French department of Tanaro. At the imperial reorganization in 1805 and then from 1805 to 1814 it was part of the department of Marengo, whose capital was at Alessandria. The department was under the jurisdiction of a French Prefect.
The French government, in the guise of ending the practices of feudalism, confiscated the incomes and benefices of the bishops and priests and made them employees of the state, with a fixed income and the obligation to swear an oath of loyalty to the French constitution. As in metropolitan France, the government program also included reducing the number of bishoprics and making them conform as far as possible with the civil administration's "departments". In accordance with the Concordat of 1801, and at the demand of the First Consul N. Bonaparte, Pope Pius VII was compelled to issue the bull Gravissimis causis (1 June 1803), in which the number of dioceses in Piedmont was reduced from seventeen to eight: Turin, Vercelli, Ivrea, Acqui, Asti, Mondovi, Alessandria and Saluzzo. The details of the new geographical divisions were left in the hands of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Caprara, the Papal Legate in Paris. In 1805 the diocese of Alba (Pompeia) was suppressed and its territory was entrusted to the Bishop of Asti. Cardinal Caprara issued his instructions for the reordering of the parishes of the diocese of Asti on 23 January 1805.