About 688 Pope Vitalian was obliged to entrust to the bishops of Benevento the pastoral care of Sipontum, which was almost abandoned, but the see was re-established in 1034, and under Bishop Saint Gerard (1066) it became an archdiocese.
Siponto |
According to him, he took the Tarantine colony Heraclea from the Lucanians; Sipontum which belonged to the Apulians; the Bruttian towns Cosentia, Terina and several more Messapian and Lucanian towns.
During this era, his territorial authority reached its maximum extent stretching from Lucera to Fiorentino, Vaccarizza, and Siponto, along the coast of the Gargano from Vieste to Rodi and Cagnano and from San Nicandro to the promontory, Rignano, and the Capitanate.
In the same year he presided over provincial synods at Salerno, Siponto and Vercelli, and in September revisited his native Germany, returning to Rome in time for a third Easter synod, at which the question of the reordination of those who had been ordained by simonists was considered.
The drawing of this sculpture of St. Michael became also the coat of arms of the city of Šibenik, because in the 12th century the justiciar of Monte Sant'Angelo, who was from Siponto, was sent by Pope Alexander III as a notifier to Šibenik.