Aquileia (Aquilee in standard Friulian, Aquilea in the local variant, Olee or Olea in ancient Friulian) is an Italian town of 3 225 inhabitants in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Roman colony founded in 181 BC, it was the capital of the 10th Augustan region and metropolis of the Christian church. Together with Ravenna and Brescia it is the most important archaeological site in northern Italy, and with Cividale del Friuli and Udine it was one of the historical capitals of Friuli, whose banner derives from the coat of arms of Aquileia.
The Basilica
The most important Church, mother of Aquileia, has
apostolic origins. Here Saint Mark, sent by Saint Peter to evangelize
the city, consecrates Saint Ermagoras as the first Bishop of Aquileia.
The Basilica is the oldest Christian building of worship in
North-Eastern Italy. Despite various subsequent interventions, the
Basilica of Aquileia maintains its 11th century forms.
The first
part was built after the edict of Constantine, by will of Bishop
Theodore. It consisted of two parallel classrooms, connected by a
transversal one. Between 1021 and 1031 an almost complete reconstruction
was carried out, at the request of the Patriarch Poppone, and the
isolated bell tower, 73 meters high, with a cusp was built, which
constituted a prototype for Friulian and Istrian buildings.
Following the earthquake of 1348, the Basilica was further restored,
acquiring interventions in Gothic style, between 1350 and 1381. Finally,
it welcomed superimpositions of Renaissance origin, especially as
regards the decorations of the presbytery area, in the period of
Venetian domination .
The double-sloping façade opens up to the
space in front through a mullioned window and a portico. The interior is
in the shape of a Latin cross, with three naves and has a raised
presbytery.
Within the ancient walls, an extraordinary mosaic
floor from the beginning of the 4th century has been preserved, with
scenes from the Old Testament, which is particularly interesting
because, if in contemporary painting in the catacombs in Rome we began
to witness a simplification of the style used , compared to a greater
immediacy of the representation and a marked symbolism, in Aquileia we
can still notice a naturalistic style of Hellenistic origin, although
already fully adequate to the new Christian symbolism.
We
therefore note the "fish", ichthys in Greek, acronym for Iesus Cristos
Theou Uios Soter (Jesus Christ Savior son of God), the stories of Jonah,
an example of the Old Testament alluding to death and resurrection in
three days, the good shepherd , the fight between the rooster and the
tortoise, etc. The rooster, which crows at dawn as the sun rises, is
considered a symbol of the light of Christ. The turtle is a symbol of
evil, of sin due to the etymology of the term which is from the Greek
Ταρταρικός, Tartarikós, "inhabitant of Tartarus". Recent studies have
highlighted that many symbols present on the mosaics can be attributed
to Gnosticism and its cosmology. A community of Gnostic Christians was
present in Aquileia in the first centuries of the Christian era. The
mosaic depiction of Solomon's knot is also frequent.
The
"mosaics", in an exceptional state of conservation both in terms of size
and completeness of the scenes and iconographic interest, are found in
the ancient basilica of Aquileia, that of the "baptised", since in
Aquileia there was also a second church, next to the first, for the
catechumens, that is, those who had not yet received baptism, according
to the custom of the time to be baptized only at adulthood, who
therefore were often the majority of the faithful.
At the
beginning of the left nave, you can access the "Cripta degli Scavi"
where the remains of the Early Christian Basilica are visible.
At
the end of the right nave there is the chapel of Sant'Ambrogio or chapel
of the Milanese Della Torre family with inside the tombs of 5 members of
that family including 3 Patriarchs of Aquileia including Raimondo della
Torre.
On 26 October 1921 in the Basilica of Aquileia, the body
of the Unknown Soldier was chosen from among those of some unidentified
soldiers who fell in the 1915-1918 war, then transported to Rome and
placed in the tomb of the monumental complex of the Vittoriano, in
Piazza Venezia, on the 4th following November. The bodies of the other
soldiers were buried in the cemetery adjacent to the Basilica, in the
"Tomb of the ten unknown soldiers", designed by the architect Guido
Cirilli.
Heroes' Cemetery
San Marco pine forest
Belvedere pine forest
Lions Woods
National archeologic museum
Early Christian Museum of Monastero -
former Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria
River port ("Via Sacra")
Roman forum
Roman burial ground
Section of the Via Flavia
Section of the Via Postumia
Section of
the Via Annia
By plane
The closest airports are:
1 Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Airport, via Aquileia 60 (in Ronchi dei Legionari), ☎ +39 0481 773224.
from which buses leave for Aquileia.
2 Venice Marco Polo Airport,
viale Galilei (in Tessera), ☎ +39 041 2609260. is 120 km away. From
Venice you can take the train and get to Cervignano
By car
A4
Venice - Trieste motorway and A23 Tarvisio - Udine motorway. Exit at
Palmanova and follow the signs along the Ss352 state road. Aquileia is
about 17 km from the motorway exit, towards Grado.
On the
train
Aquileia has no train station. The closest station is
Cervignano, on the Venice - Trieste line, and is about 8 km from the
city.
Ca'Tullio, Via Beligna 41, ☎ +39 431 919 700. Excellent wines are
produced from the vineyards of Colli Orientali and Aquileia, both
recognized Doc. areas. Possible tastings and visits to the cellar.
Mosaico, Piazza Chapter 17, ☎ +39 431 919 592,
pasticceriamosaico@alice.it. Pleasant and tasteful place; careful pastry
shop attentive to innovation, excellent coffee, artisanal ice cream,
wine tastings.
Night clubs
Augusta Musicafe', via Giulia Augusta 17, ☎ +39 370
319 5674.
In the center there are several restaurants.
Average prices
Corallo Restaurant, Via Beligna, 3, ☎ +39 0431 91065. 09:00-15:30,
18:00-22:30.
Hostaria Al Parco, via Minut 1, ☎ +39 0431 919444,
info@hostariaalparco.it. edit
La Capannina Restaurant, via Gemina 10,
☎ +39 0431 91019, info@ristorantelacapannina.net.
Taberna Marciani,
via Roma 10, ☎ +39 340 926 7560.
Fonzari Restaurant, via Giulia
Augusta 12, ☎ +39 0431 91036.
Antica Aquilea, Via Bertrando De S.
Genies, 2, ☎ +39 0431 918825, info@anticaaquileia.it. Pizza restaurant
in the heart of the historic center.
Modest prices
Camping Aquileia, via Gemina,10, ☎ +39 0431 91042,
fax: +39 0431 30804, info@campingaquileia.it.
Average prices
Hotel Patriarchi, Via Giulia Augusta,12, ☎ +39 0431 919595, +39 0431
91036, fax: +39 0431 919596, info@hotelpatriarchi.it.
The town develops around the patriarchal
basilica for a radius of about one kilometer, also incorporating the
remains of the ancient Roman city, and is crossed by the Natissa
river. The southern part of the municipal territory, behind the
Grado lagoon, is instead made up of cultivated land (deriving from
reclamation) or small patches of plain wood. The hamlet of
Belvedere, overlooking the lagoon, hosts two typical examples of
pine forests (Pineta di San Marco and Pineta di Bielvedè).
The territory of marshy origin has been recovered by massive
reclamation interventions.
From
the 2nd century BC to the 2nd century AD
Founded in 181 BC as a
colony of Latin law by the Roman triumvirs Lucio Manlio Acidino,
Publio Scipione Nasica and Gaio Flaminio sent by the Senate to block
the way to the barbarians who threatened the eastern borders of
Italy, the city first grew as a military base for campaigns against
the Istri, and against various peoples, including the Carni and then
for the Roman expansion towards the Danube.
The first
settlers were 3500 infantry followed by their respective families.
It is divided by the maximum hinge, the current Via Giulia
Augusta, and by the maximum decumano. The region, the city, and the
municipality were Romanized after 89 BC. it was enlarged in
successive phases, as attested by the various city walls. During the
winter between 59 and 58 BC, as reported in the De bello Gallico,
Julius Caesar placed his encampments circum Aquileiam, around
Aquileia and from Aquileia he called two legions to face the
Helvetians. Certainly in addition to this stay of Caesar there were
others, from which the city obtained several advantages.
It
became a political-administrative center (capital of the X Augustan
Region, Venetia et Histria) and a prosperous emporium, benefiting
from the long port system and the radial pattern of important roads
that branched off towards the north, beyond the Alps and up to the
Baltic ("via dell'ambra "), both in the latitudinal sense, from Gaul
to the East. Since the late Republican age and during almost the
entire imperial era, Aquileia was one of the great nerve centers of
the Roman Empire.
His artistic life was remarkable, sustained
by the wealth of the clients and the intensity of traffic and
contacts.
The Empire from 165 to
189 was afflicted by a plague, probably an epidemic of smallpox,
known as the Antonine Plague or "Plague of Galen", which lasted
about 15 years and according to some sources it reaped a total of
5,000,000 victims. According to some it was one of those events that
profoundly changed Roman history, as if to determine an epochal
break with the previous period.
The city of Aquileia saw,
starting from 168, immense quantities of troops massing in its
territory and the fear that this gathering could carry the dangerous
disease behind it soon proved well founded. In the spring of 168 the
emperors Marco Aurelio and Lucio Vero decided to go to the Danube
area to reach Carnuntum; Aquileia will be the first stop, the
imperial staff was made up of the praetorian prefect Tito Furio
Vittorino, Pomponio Proculo Vitrasio Pollione, Daturnio Tullo
Prisco, Claudio Frontone, Advent Antistio. The two emperors who
arrived in Aquileia and worried about the epidemic that in the
meantime had already caused the death of the prefect Furio Vittorino
send a letter to Galen asking him as personal doctor for the German
campaign.
At the end of the summer of the same year, Marcus
Aurelius withdrew from the military campaign with his troops to
spend the winter in Aquileia. Here he was joined by Galen with the
outbreak of the first cases of plague in the city. The increasing
diffusion of cases of plague in Aquileia induced the emperors to
decide to retire with only personal escort to Rome; Lucio Vero, who
had urged this departure due to his constant illness, will die in
Altino, suffering from apoplexy.
The defensive preparations, strengthened between the second and third centuries, allowed it to overcome the sieges of the Quadi and Marcomanni (170), and of the emperor Maximin the Thrace, who following the election to his detriment by the Roman Senate of the emperors Pupieno and Balbino who accepted Gordian as Caesar, came down to Italy from Pannonia with the army (in 238) but the city of Aquileia where he planned to make provisions closed its doors, forcing him to siege; Rutilio Crispino and Tullio Menofilo were commissioned by the Senate to organize the defense (bellum Aquileiensis), which they did very well by reinforcing the walls and accumulating food and water in quantity. Maximin sent envoys under the walls to invite the population to surrender; Crispino harangued the people (the speech is reported by Herodian), inviting them to trust in the Roman Senate and to earn the title of liberators of Italy from the tyranny of Maximin.
Lost in heart by the continued siege, Maximin's soldiers killed him. Menofilo and the other commander of the garrison, Tullio Menofilo, went to Cervignano where Massimino's army was encamped along the Ausa river bearing the effigies of Pupieno, Balbino and Gordiano crowned with laurel; after having acclaimed the emperors alone, they turned and asked the army to recognize by acclamation the emperors chosen by the Senate and the people of Rome.
In 300 the Emperor Maximian settled in the
imperial palaces of Mediolanum and Aquileia and in these cities he
erected buildings of enormous proportions so as to make them appear
as a sort of "second capital" (including the circus). Although the
Crisis of the III century had painful repercussions, the city, seat
of numerous authoritative offices and institutions, was still, at
the death of Emperor Theodosius I (395), the ninth city of the
Empire and the fourth in Italy, after Rome, Milan and Capua, famous
for its walls and port.
In the IV-V century A.D. Imperial
presences intensified and many bloody clashes resolved fratricidal
disputes (Constantine II, 339; Magnentius, 350) or episodes of
usurpation: Theodosius I defeated Magno Massimo (388); Valentinian
III killed Giovanni Primicerio there (425).
Aquileia
exercised a moral and cultural function with the advent of
Christianity which, according to tradition, was preached in the area
by the apostle St. Mark. In the first centuries the city then saw
the testimony of several martyrs, the first of which were Ermagora
and Fortunato (about 70 AD); a native of Aquileia would also be Pope
Pius I (d. 154). Other martyrs of the Aquileian church were, in the
third century, Hilary and Taziano (d. 284); at the beginning of the
4th century Chrysogonus, Proto and the brothers Canzio, Canziano and
Canzianilla were martyred, the cult of which found wide diffusion in
all the territories of the Diocese of Aquileia, from Veneto to
Istria, from Carinthia to Slovenia. In 313 the emperor Constantine
put an end to the persecutions. With the bishop Theodore (d. 319
about) a large center for worship was built consisting of three
splendidly mosaic halls, each of which contained over 2,000
faithful.
The bishops of Aquileia grew in importance in the
following centuries, giving a vigorous contribution to the
development of Western Christianity, both from a doctrinal point of
view (the council of 381, which affected all the churches of the
West, was famous and decisive for the fight against Arianism. ) and
for the authority exercised (it was a metropolis for about twenty
dioceses in Italy and ten beyond the Alps).
Aquileia resisted the
repeated raids of Alaric (401, 408) but not to Attila who, following
the accidental collapse of a wall of the fortification, managed to
penetrate the city on 18 July 452, devastating it and, it is said,
spreading salt on the ruins. Attila forced the legionaries he had
taken prisoners to build siege machines used by the Romans and
massacred or enslaved a large part of the population. Two legends
are linked to the figure of Attila: one relating to the collapse of
the walls of Aquileia and a premonitory dream thanks to which Attila
conquered the city; the other on the treasure of Aquileia, buried to
prevent it from being plundered. The authority of his church and the
myth of a city that had been powerful survived, although by now its
direct dominion was limited to a territory of reduced extension that
had its strengths in the urban area with the seaport and in the
village. of Grado.
The latter developed and acquired ever
greater importance following the Lombard invasion of 568. From that
moment the region of Aquileia was divided between the
Roman-Byzantines (who occupied the coastal area based in Grado) and
the Lombards ( the internal part based in Aquileia). In fact, from
606 there was also the splitting of the patriarchal see. In the VII
century there were the monastic foundations by the white Benedictine
monks of San Colombano of the abbey of San Martino della Beligna and
of the monastery of Santa Maria di Monastero. In the eighth century
the seat of the patriarchate was moved to the safer Cividale. In the
10th century there were numerous destructions due to the raids of
the Hungarians.
Towards the year one thousand the city was reborn, which returned to having great prestige with the patriarch Poppone (1019-42), who brought the headquarters back to Aquileia.
1420 marked the end of the temporal power of the patriarchs and
Aquileia passed under the dominion of the Serenissima. Aquileia,
however, continued to give its name to the homonymous patriarchate.
In 1509 it was conquered by the Holy Roman Empire during the War
of the League of Cambrai.
With the treaty of Noyon, later
confirmed by the peace of Worms (1521), Aquileia remained under
imperial dominion, becoming one of the 16 captains of the County of
Gorizia; the loss of Aquileia, together with Cervignano, isolated
Monfalcone from the other Venetian dominions by land.
With
the arbitration award of Trento of 1535, Aquileia was returned to
the Patriarch.
In 1543 Nicolò Della Torre, captain of
Gradisca, had an Austrian garrison installed in Aquileia, putting an
end to the temporal dominion of the patriarchs over the city,
restored only a few years ago. Since then the locality has been
subjected to the captaincy of Gradisca.
Giacomo d'Attems, who
held the position of captain until his death in 1590, gave the
captaincy of Gradisca a precise physiognomy, subjecting it to the
city of Aquileia, as well as the fortress of Gradisca and the villas
of Farra, Villanova, Mossa, Ruda, San Nicolò di Levata (commandery
of the Order of Malta), Sant'Egidio, Fiumicello, Villa Vicentina,
the gastaldia of Aiello (with Joannis, Tapogliano and Visco).
In 1647 the city of Gradisca d'Isonzo was given as a separate
county under the counts of Eggenberg, who also had jurisdiction over
Aquileia; in 1754, Gradisca was reunited with Gorizia creating the
County of Gorizia and Gradisca.
After the Treaty of
Campoformio and the subsequent Treaty of Lunéville, it remained in
the Habsburg Monarchy.
With the Peace of Peace of Presburgo
it passed to the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy; the subsequent
Fontainebleau Convention of 1807 and the following Treaty of
Schönbrunn (1809) then confirmed this assignment until 1814, under
the Department of the Adriatic.
With the Congress of Vienna
in 1815 it returned to Austrian hands in the Kingdom of Illyria; it
later passed under the administrative profile to the Austrian coast
in 1849 as a municipality including the hamlets of Beligna,
Belvedere, Monastero and Sant'Egidio (now San Zilli).
In
Cascina Farello (1 km south-east of Aquileia) a section of Nieuport
was detached from the French Escadrille N 92 i - N 392 - N 561 of
the Venice-Lido Airport since 23 November 1915 , until 24 October
1917, from 2 March 1916 the 2nd Fighter Squadron arrives which on 15
April 1916 becomes the 71st Fighter Squadron which remains until 25
May and from August 1916 the 77th Airplane Squadron until March
1917. In December 1918 arrives in Aquileia the I Group until
February 28, 1919 and in Cascina Farello at the end of 1918 the
131st Squadriglia until March 1919.
After the First World War
it was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy and was joined to the
Province of Gorizia.
Following the abolition of the same
province in 1923, the municipality passed to the province of Friuli
and was included in the district of Cervignano in the district of
Gradisca and immediately afterwards in the district of Udine.
The invasion of the Huns and the conquest of Aquileia
by Attila left a profound impression on the collective memory. Even
today, in the common idioms of the territory, the appellative of
"Attila" is given to those who are particularly aggressive or
destructive. There are numerous legends about this character in
relation to the city, three are the most recurrent.
"The
siege". Aquileia was putting up a tough resistance to the invaders.
Attila was about to order his people to retreat when he saw storks
flying off with their young. Realizing that the city no longer had
the necessary provisions to feed the population, he maintained the
siege for a few more days and managed to conquer it.
"The
hill". Once the city was set on fire, Attila, now far away, gave
orders to the warriors to bring earth in their helmets and pour it
into a predetermined point. The soldiers were very numerous and in a
short time they managed to form a hill with the land brought back,
from which Attila could observe the smoke rising from the burned
city. It is said that the hill is that of Udine, on which the castle
stands, but other places in the region also claim to have the same
origin.
"The golden well". Some inhabitants of Aquileia had managed to escape before the fire, finding refuge on the island of Grado. Before their escape, however, they had their slaves dig a well in which they had hidden all the treasures and gold objects. To keep the secret, the slaves were drowned; the well of gold was never found. This myth was considered so likely that, until the First World War, land purchase contracts included the clause "I sell you the field, but not the golden well", ensuring the eventual recovery to the previous owner.