VISHNU. See Hinduism.

VISIGOTHS. See Goths, § 6.

VISITATIO LIMINUM SANCTORUM APOSTOLORUM: The visiting of the church of SS. Peter and Paul at Rome, and also of the Curia, in compliance with either $ vow or the law of the Roman Catholjc Church. Such visitations in consequence of vows were frequent in the Middle Ages; but the popes were compelled to limit such visits, and in 1478 Sixtus IV. issued a special papal reservation on the subject. The papal reservation is no longer set forth in the quinquennial faculties.

The most important form of the visitation is that required by law for the exercise of the necessary supervision over the Church. By a Roman synod of 743-all bishops residing near Rome were required to visit the pope each year about the middle of May, while those whose sees were distant were enjoined to write annually concerning the condition of their dioceses. After 1079 this duty was made incumbent on all metropolitans by Gregory VII., and was soon extended to all bishops, though intervals of varying length were accorded in proportion to the distance of their dioceses from Rome.

I In the bull Romanus pontifex (Dec. 20, 1584) Six-

' tus V. enacted that the bishops of Italy and the neighboring islands, Dalmatia, and Greece should visit every three years; those of Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Bohemia, Hungary, England, Scotland, and Ireland every four years; those of the remainder of Europe, northern Africa, and the islands east of the American continent every five years; and those of all other lands every ten years. This was confirmed by Benedict XIV. in his constitution Quad sancta (Nov. 23, 1740), and he extended the requirement to all possessing quasiepiscopal jurisdiction. It is generally held that titular bishops are also bound to make the visitation.

The visitation should be performed in person at

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the designated intervals; but if this is impossible, the prelate concerned may be represented by a special, properly qualified plenipotentiary. The visitation comprises three parts, attested by the Congregatio super state ecclesiarum: the visit to the "church of the apostles" (the church occupied by the pope and the Curia; normally St. Peter's, Rome), and an oral and written statement of the affairs of the diocese of the bishop concerned.

(E. Friedberg†.)

Bibliography: J. H. Bangen, Die römische Kurie, pp. 177 sqq., Münster, 1854; A. Lucidi, De visitatione liminum, Rome, 1878; P. Melcher, De canouicd diwcesi visitatione, Cologne, 1893; 85gmaller, in TQS, l=viii (1900), 69, 91; KL, aii. 1011-13.