Prefecture most commonly refers to a self-governing body or area since the tetrarchy when Emperor Diocletian divided the Roman Empire into four districts (each divided into dioceses, grouped under a Vicarius (a number of Roman provinces, listed under that article), although he maintained two pretorian prefectures as an administrative level above the also surviving dioceses (a few of which were split).
Vicarius |
Such cryptograms were not uncommon; Brady comments on (from Richard Bernard's Key of Knowledge of 1617) the phrase Generalis Dei Vicarius in Terris likewise treated, and Thomas Beard’s 1625 permutation Vicarius Dei Generalis in Terris, perhaps influenced by Helwig.
When Petrus Accolti, Bishop-elect of Ancona, was named vicarius urbis in 1505, he took over the jurisdiction, but the pontificalia or ceremonial rights were given to Franciscus Berthleay, Bishop of Mylopotamos, until the consecration of Accolti.