Castellaneta (Castania), DIOCESE OF (CASTELLANETENSIS), suffragan of Taranto. Castellaneta is a city of the province of Lecce, in Southern Italy, about twenty-four miles from Taranto (Tarentum). Nothing is known of this city previous to 1080, when it was taken by Robert, Duke of Tarentum, who expelled its Byzantine inhabitants, at which time, probably, the episcopal see was created; in the same year Tarentum was made a metropolitan see. A Bishop of Castellaneta, Joannes, is first mentioned in 1088. In 1818 the Diocese of Mottola was united with the Diocese of Castellaneta. There is a record of an otherwise unknown Bishop of Mottola who died in 1040; his successor was a certain Liberius. The diocese has a population of 38,600, with 6 parishes, 41 churches and chapels, 53 secular and 16 regular priests, 2 religious houses of men and 6 of women.
Cappelletti, Le chiese d'Italia (Venice, 1844), XXI, 141; Ann. eccl. (Rome, 1907), 378.
U. Benigni.