Biagio (or Blaise, Latin ''Blasius'') was the

Archbishop of Torres The Archdiocese of Sassari () is a Latin Church, Latin archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Sardinia, Italy. Its see was initially at Porto Torres, Torres. It was elevated to an archdiocese in 1073. Its suffragan sees are the diocese of Alghero ...

from 1 December 1202 to his death late 1214 or early 1215. He was originally from the

diocese of Nevers In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated ...

. He went to

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

and became a subdeacon and then a papal notary before 1200. By the influence of

Pope Innocent III Pope Innocent III (; born Lotario dei Conti di Segni; 22 February 1161 – 16 July 1216) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 until his death on 16 July 1216. Pope Innocent was one of the most power ...

, he was elected to the vacant see of

Porto Torres Porto Torres (; ) is a (municipality) and a city of the Province of Sassari in north-west of Sardinia, Italy. Founded during the 1st century BC as , it was the first Roman colony of the entire Sardinia, island. It is situated on the coast at abo ...

in 1202. He was consecrated sometime before 7 March 1203. One of his first acts was to order the ''

giudici The Judicates (, or in Sardinian, in Latin, or in Italian), in English also referred to as Sardinian Kingdoms, Sardinian Judgedoms or Judicatures, were independent states that took power in Sardinia in the Middle Ages, between the eleventh ...

'' to punish the murderers of the bishop of Ploaghe, the abbot of Tregu, and the vicar of

Camaldoli Camaldoli () is a ''frazione'' of the ''comune'' of Poppi, in Tuscany, Italy. It is mostly known as the ancestral seat of the Camaldolese monastic order, originated in the eponymous hermitage, which can still be visited. The name was derived from ...

. On 10 March 1203, the pope put Comita III of Logudoro under the protection of Biagio and not of

Pisa Pisa ( ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Tuscany, Central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for the Leaning Tow ...

in light of the invasion of

Logudoro The Logudoro (; ) is a large historical region Sardinia, Italy. It is the namesake of the Logudorese dialect of Sardinian language, Sardinian, which covers a large area of northern-central Sardinia. The first denomination of the area is contai ...

William I of Cagliari William I (c. 1160–1214), royal name Salusio IV, was the '' judike'' of Cagliari, meaning "King", from 1188 to his death. His descendants and those of his immediate competitors intermarried to form the backbone of the Italian Aristocracy, an ...

. On 22 March, with papal consent, he gave Christian burial to Comita's father, Constantine II, who had died excommunicate. In a letter dated that same day to Comita, William, and Hugh I of Arborea, the pope ordered the ''giudici'' to take an oath of allegiance to Biagio, thus breaking their link of fidelity to Pisa. Biagio had trouble extracting the oath from William, who had previously made it to Uberto, Archbishop of Pisa. On 15 September, Innocent absolved William of the oath. In that year, Barisone II of Gallura died and left the succession to

Gallura Gallura ( or ; ) is a region in North-Eastern Sardinia, Italy. The name ''Gallùra'' is allegedly supposed to mean "stony area". Geography Gallùra has an area of . It is from the Italian peninsula and from the French island of Corsica. ...

in the hands of the pope, who gave Biagio the responsibility of arranging a marriage for the Gallurese heiress Elena. In 1203, he tried to marry her to Ittocorre of Torres and in 1206 to Trasmondo, a relative of the pope's, but both of these arrangements fell through, and Elena married

Lamberto di Eldizio Lamberto Visconti di Eldizio (died 1225) was the Giudice of Gallura, Judge of Gallura from 1206, when he married the heiress Elena of Gallura, Elena, to his own death. He was a member of the Visconti of Pisa, Visconti family of Republic of Pisa, Pi ...

without Biagio's approval, but with the support of the local clergy, who detested Logudorese supremacy. In a letter of 3 July 1204, Innocent confirmed the apostolic legateship to Uberto of Pisa ''only'' while he was on the island. Then the three Sardinian archbishops – Biagio, Riccus of Cagliari, and Bernard of Arborea – excommunicated the ''giudici'' for trying to solve their problems in the saecular forum (i.e., through war). Biagio maintained good relations with Comita. He offered to divorce Comita from his wife if he would abandon his mistress and he revoked the excommunication of Comita's relative, Ittocorre de Thoris, for murdering the

bishop of Ampurias The Diocese of Tempio-Ampurias () is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in Sardinia, Italy. Until 1986 it was known as Diocese of Ampurias e Tempio. It is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Sassari It had borne that name since 1506, wh ...

. Biagio did not have a good relationship with the other ''giudici'', however. He had to reprove Hugh of Arborea and the archbishop of Cagliari for the incestuous marriage of Hugh to a daughter of William of Cagliari (27 October 1207). On 3 September 1211, he accused William of violence against women and the usurpation of Arborea. However, Biagio's relationship with the papacy soon deteriorated and Innocent ordered him to confirm the marriage alliance between the houses of Bas (Arborea) and Massa (Cagliari). Nevertheless, in April 1213, Innocent gave the right to him and the archbishop of Cagliari of preaching the

Fifth Crusade The Fifth Crusade (September 1217 - August 29, 1221) was a campaign in a series of Crusades by Western Europeans to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering Egypt, ruled by the powerful Ayyubid sultanate, led by al- ...

in Sardinia. Biagio died less than two years later, probably at

Cagliari Cagliari (, , ; ; ; Latin: ''Caralis'') is an Comune, Italian municipality and the capital and largest city of the island of Sardinia, an Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Italy. It has about 146,62 ...

Sources

*Ghisalberti, Aldo (ed). ''Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani: X Biagio – Boccaccio''. Rome, 1968. *Moore, John C.
Pope Innocent III, Sardinia, and the Papal State.
''Speculum'', Vol. 62, No. 1. (Jan., 1987), pp 81–101. {{DEFAULTSORT:Biagio 12th-century births 1214 deaths 13th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in Sicily