The Archdiocese of Florence () is a metropolitan see of the Catholic Church in Italy. It was traditionally founded in the 1st century, according to the 14th century chronicler Giovanni Villani. The diocese was directly subordinate to the Holy See (Papacy) until 1420. Florence was elevated to the dignity of an archdiocese on May 10, 1419, by Pope Martin V. The ecclesiastical province of Florence, of which the Archbishop of Florence in the metropolitan, includes the suffragan dioceses of Arezzo-Cortona-Sansepolcro, Fiesole, Pistoia, Prato, and San Miniato. The seat of the Archbishop of Florence is Florence Cathedral, otherwise the . Since September 2008 Cardinal Giuseppe Betori has been the Archbishop. History On 29 July 1322, Pope John XXII reserved to the pope the right to nominate as well as confirm the bishops of Florence. Due to heavy rains in the autumn and winter of 1346–1347, the crops were a failure, in wheat as well as in grapes and olives. By May 1347 the price of wheat in Florence had doubled. Arrangements were made to import grain from south Italy, Sicily and Africa, but the merchants of Siena and Genoa, who were contracted to transport the foodstuffs, kept half for their own cities. 94,000 inhabitants of Florence were dependent upon municipal charity, and some 4,000 were said to have died of starvation. Then, in April 1348, the pestilence known as the Black Death, struck Florence. By July nearly 100,000 people were dead. The historian Giovanni Villani estimated that nearly three out of every five persons in Florence and its neighborhood had been struck down. Ultimately he himself succumbed. In his famous introduction to the Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio repeats the number 100,000 and provides harrowing details of the breakdown of social connections and human feelings. Other episodes of pestilence in Florence occurred in 1325, 1340, 1344, 1363, 1509, 1522–1528, and 1630. Council of Florence In 1438, the Council of Basel was moved to Ferrara, and, in doing so, split into two factions, one remaining at Basel and electing their own pope, the Antipope Felix V. The faction that settled at Ferrara had to leave soon, however, due to an appearance of the plague. They were reconstituted at Florence by Pope Eugenius IV, and became the Council of Florence, which was transferred to Rome in 1443. Chapter and cathedral The current cathedral of Florence is dedicated to the Assumption of the Body of the