[3] His mission was unsuccessful, and on his return Liutprand wrote a highly colored narration of his embassy, the "Relatio de legatione Constantinopolitana ad Nicephorum Phocam".

[4] The document mentions an aggressive act on the part of Polyeuctos, Patriarch of Constantinople, raising the bishopric of Otranto (Hydruntum) to the rank of a metropolitanate, and granting that prelate the right to consecrate bishops for Acerenza, Turcico (Tursi), Gravina, Macera, and Tricarico.

Nicephoros Phocas according to Liutprand, ordered that all the dioceses in Byzantine territory in south Italy should use only the Greek Rite in the liturgy.

Pope John XXII immediately invalidated his election, as attempted contrary to papal reservation, and on 4 May 1324 appointed Bonaccursus, the archpriest of the church of Ferrara instead.

Pope Pius VII was a prisoner of Napoleon in France from 1809 to 1815, and was both unable and unwilling to make new episcopal appointments.

The right of the king to nominate the candidate for a vacant bishopric was recognized, as in the Concordat of 1741, subject to papal confirmation (preconisation).

[21] On 27 June 1818, Pius VII issued the bull De Ulteriore, in which the metropolitanate of Acerenza was restored, with Anglona e Tursi, Potenza, Tricarico, and Venosa as suffragans; the diocese of Matera was permanently suppressed and united to the Church of Acerenza.

[23] Following the Second Vatican Council, and in accordance with the norms laid out in the council's decree, Christus Dominus chapter 40,[24] Pope Paul VI ordered a reorganization of the ecclesiastical provinces in southern Italy by the bull Quo aptius of 21 August 1976.

[29] When Bishop Angelo succeeded to the diocese in 1411, he found the finances of the Chapter in such dire straits that he permanently diverted part of his own income from one of the gabelles to aid the prelates to live in some dignity.