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ADRIA Thomæ (sc. Aquinatis) written c. 1260 (?), which forms no part of the Office or Mass of the Blessed Sacrament, although found in the Roman Missal (In gratiarum actione post missam) with 100 days indulgence for priests (subsequently extended to all the faithful by decree of the S.C. Indulgent., 17 June, 1895). It is also found commonly in prayer and hymn-books. It has received sixteen translations into English verse. The Latin text, with English translation, may be found in the Baltimore "Manual of Prayers" (659, 660). Either one of two refrains is inserted after each quatrain (a variation of one of which is in the Manual), but originally the hymn originally the hymn lacked the refrain.

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Adria, an Italian bishopric, suffragan to Venice, which comprises 55 towns in the Province of Rovigo, and a part of one town in the Province of Padua. Tradition dates the preaching of the Gospel in Adria from the days of St. Apollinaris, who had been consecrated bishop by St. Peter. The figure of this Bishop of Ravenna has a singular importance in the hagiographical legends of the northeast of Italy. Recent investigation has shown that even if Emilia, Romagna, and the territory around Venice were Christianized and had bishops (the two facts are concomitant) before Piedmont, for example, still their conversion does not go back beyond the end of the second century. (See Zattoni, Il valore storico della Passio di S. Apollinare e la fondazione dell episcopato a Ravenna e in Romagna, in the Rivista storico-critica delle scienze teologiche, I, 10, and II, 3.) The first bishop of Adria of whose name we are positive is Gallonistus, who was present at a synod in Rome (649) under Martin I (Mansi, XII). Venerable Bede, in his Martyrology, mentions a St. Colianus, Bishop of Adria, but we know nothing about him. Amongst the bishops of Adria is the Blessed Aldobrandinus of Este (1248–1352). This diocese contains 80 parishes; 300 churches, chapels, and oratories; 250 secular priests; 72 seminarians; 12 regular priests; 9 lay-brothers; 90 confraternities; 3 boys schools (97 pupils); 6 girls schools (99 pupils). Population, 190,400.

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Adrian I, from about 1 February, 772, till 25 December, 795; date of birth uncertain; d. 25 December, 795. His pontificate of twenty-three years, ten months, and twenty-four days was unequalled in length by that of any successor of St. Peter until a thousand years later, when Pius VI, deposed and imprisoned by the same Frankish arms which had enthroned the first Pope-King, surpassed Adrian by a pontificate six months longer. At a critical period in the history of the Papacy, Adrian possessed all the qualities essential in the founder of a new dynasty. He was a Roman of noble extraction and majestic stature. By a life of singular piety, by accomplishments deemed extraordinary in that iron age, and by valuable services rendered during the pontificate of Paul I and Stephen III, he had so gained the esteem of his unruly countrymen that the powerful chamberlain, Paul Afiarta, who represented in Rome the interests of Desiderius, the Lombard king, was powerless to resist the unanimous voice of the clergy and people demanding for Adrian the papal chair. The new pontiff's temporal policy was, from the first, sharply defined and tenaciously adhered to; the keynote was a steadfast resistance to Lombard aggression. He released from prison or recalled from exile the numerous victims of the chamberlain's violence; and, upon discovering that Afiarta had caused Sergius, a high official of the papal court, to be assassinated in prison, ordered his arrest in Rimini, just as Afiarta was returning from an embassy to Desiderius with the avowed intention of bringing the Pope to the Lombard court, "were it even in chains." The time seemed propitious for subjecting all Italy to the Lombard rule; and with less able antagonists than Adrian and Charles (to be famous in later ages as Charlemagne), most probably the ambition of Desiderius would have been gratified. There seemed little prospect of Frankish intervention. The Lombards held the passes of the Alps, and Charles was engrossed by the difficulties of the Saxon war; moreover, the presence in Pavia of Gerberga and her two sons, the widow and orphans of Carloman, whose territories, on his brother's death, Charles had annexed, seemed to offer an excellent opportunity of stirring up discord among the Franks, if only the Pope could be persuaded, or coerced, to anoint the children as heirs to their father's throne. Instead of complying, Adrian valiantly determined upon resistance. He strengthened the fortifications of Rome, called to the aid of the militia the inhabitants of the surrounding territory, and, as the Lombard host advanced, ravaging and plundering summoned Charles to hasten to the defence of their common interests. An opportune lull in the Saxon war left the great commander free to act. Unable to bring the deceitful Lombard to terms by peaceful overtures, he scaled the Alps in the autumn of 773, seized Verona, where Gerberga and her sons had sought refuge, and besieged Desiderius in his capital. The following spring, leaving his army to prosecute the siege of Pavia, he proceeded with a strong detachment to Rome, in order to celebrate the festival of Easter at the tomb of the Apostles. Arriving on Holy Saturday, he was received by Adrian and the Romans with the utmost solemnity. The next three days were devoted to religious rites; the following Wednesday to affairs of state. The enduring outcome of their momentous meeting was the famous "Donation of Charlemagne", for eleven centuries the Magna Charta of the temporal power of the Popes. (See .) Duchesne's thorough and impartial investigation of its authenticity in his edition of the Liber Pontificalis (I, ccxxxv–ccxliii) would seem to have dissipated any reasonable doubt. Two months later Pavia fell into the hands of Charles; the kingdom of the Lombards was extinguished, and the Papacy was forever delivered from its persistent and hereditary foe. Nominally, Adrian was now monarch of above two-thirds of the Italian peninsula; but his sway was little more than nominal. Over a great portion of the district mentioned in the Donation, the papal claims were permitted to lapse. To gain and regain the rest, Charles was forced to make repeated expeditions across the Alps. We may well doubt whether the great King of the Franks would have suffered the difficulties of the Pope to interfere with his more immediate cares, were it not for his extreme personal veneration of Adrian, whom in life and death he never ceased to proclaim his father and best friend It was in no slight degree owing to Adrian's political sagacity, vigilance, and activity, that the temporal power of the Papacy did not remain a fiction of the imagination.

His merits were equally great in the more spiritual concerns of the Church. In co-operation with the orthodox Empress Irene, he laboured to repair the