Roman Catholic Diocese of Colle di Val d'Elsa

[5] That status was contested regularly by the bishops of Volterra, however, and they finally obtained a favorable ruling from Pope Clement III on 24 January 1188.

Giovanni, Faustina e Giulita in Val d'Elsa was apparently established by Pope Urban VI in 1386, from territory removed from the Diocese of Volterra.

[9] The new bishop, Usimbardo Usimbardi, a Canon of the cathedral of Florence and a personal friend of Duke Ferdinando, was appointed on the same day as the establishment of the diocese.

[11] Bishop Usimbardo Usimbardi (1592–1612) held the first diocesan synod in April 1594, and promulgated a set of Constitutions for the government of the diocese.

[13] A project begun on orders from Pope John XXIII, and continued under his successors, was intended to reduce the number of dioceses in Italy and to rationalize their borders in terms of modern population changes and shortages of clergy.

There was to be only one episcopal curia, one seminary, one ecclesiastical tribunal; and all the clergy were to be incardinated in the Archdiocese of Siena-Colle di Val d'Elsa-Montalcino.