Ogliastra (OLEASTRENSIS), Diocese of, in the Province of Cagliari, Sardinia. It was formerly under the Archbishop of Cagliari, but Leo XII, at the petition of King Charles Felix, by a bull of November 11, 1824, erected Ogliastra into a diocese, suffragan of Cagliari, with the Capuchin Serafino Carchero for its first prelate. In the Middle Ages, after the expulsion of the Saracens (1050), Ogliastra was one of the five native giudicature, or independent districts, and had for its first lords the Sismondi. Tortoli the episcopal seat is a small city of about 2000 inhabitants, which belongs to the district of Lanusei. The diocese has 29 parishes, 54,500 inhabitants, 53 churches, chapels, and oratories, 46 secular priests, two schools one of which is directed by the Salesians; the present bishop Msgr. Emanuele Virgilio, who succeeded Msgr. Guiseppe Paderi on April 15, 1910, was previously Vicar-General of the Diocese of Vanosa.
U. BENIGNI