Pordenone

 

Pordenone (Pordenon in Friulian and in Venetian, Portenau in German) is an Italian town of 51 714 inhabitants in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. It the main city of western Friuli (or right Tagliamento), located along the banks of the Noncello river (whose short course flows into the Meduna river, the main tributary of the Livenza), in the center of an urban area of ​​about 86,000 inhabitants consisting of the municipality of Cordenons, to the east, and that of Porcia, to the west, its past port vocation is evident in the name Portus Naonis (in Latin "port of the [river] Naone" [or "Noncello"]).

According to the regional law 26/2014 "Reorganization of the Region System - Local Autonomies of Friuli Venezia Giulia" Pordenone was the seat of the Noncello UTI, of which it was part together with the municipalities of Cordenons, Fontanafredda, Porcia, Roveredo in Piano, San Quirino and Zoppola. Even following the suppression of the province, the municipality of Pordenone (like those of Trieste, Gorizia and Udine) still maintains the prerogatives connected to the qualification of "provincial capital".

 

Territory

The territory of Pordenone is located in the low Friuli plain of the Po-Venetian plain, south of the Carnic Prealps. The location of the first settlement is not accidental: it was in fact on an alternative route to via Postumia, called "stradalta", which connected the Roman cities of Opitergium (Oderzo) and Iulia Concordia (Concordia Sagittaria) with Bellunum (Belluno) and Iulium Carnicum (Zuglio) and the Norico region.

The low Pordenone plain is characterized by an abundance of water and the phenomenon of resurgences.

 

Climate

Pordenone belongs to the climatic zone E.

 

History

Antiquity
In Roman times the urban nucleus was located in the upper course of the Noncello river, roughly in the place where the hamlet of Torre stands today. The Roman origins of the city found confirmation in the discoveries that took place in the twentieth century. Count Giuseppe di Ragogna, aristocrat owner of the castle of Torre, found, following an excavation campaign (1940-1948; 1950-1952), the remains of a Roman villa, also used as a site for the processing and storage of agricultural products and goods (the richness of the finds found, such as fragments of skilfully hand-made frescoes and refined mosaic material, reflect the high wealth of the clients). The place was probably chosen for the presence, further north, of a large river ford, easily reachable on foot from the "villa", where there was probably also a small river landing.

Middle Ages
With the beginning of the early medieval period (from the sixth century) the river routes assumed greater importance and the nucleus of the city consequently moved towards the valley, in a position that allowed the landing of larger boats. The city then developed on the right bank of the Noncello river, near an inlet that took advantage of a motta (hillock, embankment) surrounded to the west by the Codafora canal and to the north-east by that of the Molini.

Like the rest of Friuli, it was part of the Longobard Duchy of Friuli and subsequently of the Marca del Friuli, even if the whole period from the Roman era up to about the 10th century is, however, little documented. Recent findings in the area of ​​the cathedral of San Marco, and in particular in the area in front of the town hall and under the Palazzo Ricchieri, show that Pordenone was inhabited, approximately under the reign of Berengario, by populations from Carinthia, who at era was of Slavic culture (Carantani). The first probable reference to the town of Pordenone comes in 1204 in the travel diary of Wolger, bishop of Passau, who would become patriarch of Aquileia.

For a short period in which the city was an integral part of the homeland of Friuli. At the beginning of the 13th century, probably after 1221, the Babenbergs, dukes of Austria and Styria and former lords of Cordenons, obtained dominion over Pordenone from the lords of Castello, vassals of the Patriarch. It is curious to note that the royals of Spain, most recently Philip VI of Spain, still bear the title of Lords of Pordenone, Duke of Carinthia and Styria. The Babenbergs gave in concession to local lords, including the di Ragogna, the tasks of administrators and debt collectors. With the extinction of the Babenberg family in 1246, their possessions returned to Emperor Frederick II.

Pordenone was conquered by King Ottokar II of Bohemia during his occupation of the duchies of Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola between 1257 and 1270. In 1270 Ottocaro proclaimed himself "dominus Portusnaonis", underlining the importance he gave to the dominion Pordenone. When in 1276 Ottocaro, defeated, was forced to return all the Austrian lands and neighboring domains to Emperor Rudolph I of Habsburg, Pordenone also returned to imperial hands, so much so that in 1282 Pordenone became the personal heritage of the House of Austria, representing de facto an enclave of the archduchy of Austria in the territory of the patriarchate of Aquileia.

The castle of Torre and the small surrounding area, after the raids of Gregorio da Montelongo in 1262, instead became the property of the patriarchs of Aquileia, who subsequently granted them as a fief to the nobles of Prata and then exchanged with the lords of Ragogna.

The village of Vallenoncello belonged for a long time to the bishop of Salzburg.

Between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the political fragmentation of the area was further accentuated because Corva (current fraction of Azzano Decimo) was given to the di Prata who also acquired some parts of Fiume Veneto.

 

In 1291 the Duke Albert I of Habsburg granted the city a first statute which remained in force until 1438, when a new statute was drawn up more suited to the new needs of the municipality. This second text remained in force until the early sixteenth century. In the 14th century the settlement of Pordenone grew considerably thanks to the flourishing river trade and, in 1314, it was given the status of a city.On 23 August 1318 a raging fire devastated the city which until then was built almost entirely of wood . After this disaster the decision was made to rebuild the city with stone buildings. In 1347 the bell tower was inaugurated, built next to the cathedral of San Marco. The Pordenone area always remained an area of ​​interest for the Patriarchs, who repeatedly tried to conquer it. The current coat of arms of the city was granted at the beginning of 1400 by William I of Habsburg. The coat of arms is almost the same as the one previously granted by Ottocaro.

During the Venetian invasion of 1420 which led to the annexation of the patriarchal state of Aquileia to the republic of Venice, the Habsburg possessions were not touched. Pordenone therefore continues to be an Austrian enclave. In 1499 Friuli suffered the worst Turkish invasion in its history. The Turks (who were actually mainly Bosnians) sowed death and devastation even in the surroundings of Pordenone, while the city itself managed to save itself thanks to its walls. In fact, the Turks were unable to withstand a siege.

The city suffered - like almost all cities of the time - also many plagues and epidemics (in 1444, 1485, 1527, 1556 and 1576), the worst of which occurred in 1630, when almost half of the population died.

Modern age
On April 20, 1508, Captain Bartolomeo d'Alviano "leads the Venetian arms to the conquest of Pordenone", taking it away from the Habsburgs on behalf of the Republic of Venice. Venice kept the city only for two years since in 1509 it lost it again. However, in 1514, Bartolomeo d'Alviano himself brought it back under the control of the Serenissima. Venice did not directly govern the city, preferring to grant it as a fief to Bartolomeo d'Alviano, who ruled it as lordship. Upon his death in 1515, he was succeeded by his consort Pantasilea Baglioni, and then by his son Livio (his presumed portrait by Pordenone in the city's cathedral is noteworthy), who died in battle in 1537.

In that year Pordenone and the neighboring territories passed under the direct control of the Republic of Venice and remained there for more than two and a half centuries. The Serenissima kept the statutes of the city and recognized, at least on paper, the privileges already acquired during the Habsburg rule; he also provided to reactivate the Pordenone economy by creating a new port and strengthening manufacturing activities.

Contemporary age
Located between Udine and Venice, connected to the railway and road line Venice-Pordenone-Udine and Gorizia, Pordenone in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries found a perfect balance between a traditional conservative culture with a Venetian plant and an innovative breath from the French and Austro world. -Hungarian: the conservative front, while winking at the progress of other nations, maintained a close social and cultural relationship with Venice and the world of tradition handed down, while on the opposite side the progressives tried to break away from the past to embrace the new ideas arrived in particular with the Napoleonic campaign of 1797.

With the fall of Venice, Pordenone underwent a first return to Austria, followed by the Napoleonic parenthesis. Following the capitulation of Bonaparte and the decisions taken in the Congress of Vienna, the city returned to be part of the Austrian Empire and was aggregated with the rest of Friuli and Veneto to the Lombard-Veneto kingdom: it was thus included by the Austrians in the province of Friuli which had Udine as its capital. The construction of the Pontebbana road and the railway line (1855) Venice-Pordenone-Udine led, on the one hand, to an inexorable decline of the port and the river path, but, on the other hand, it gave rise to the affirmation of the industry . Starting in the 1840s, numerous cotton mills were built alongside the already numerous paper mills and the Ceramica Galvani factory.

 

After the annexation to the kingdom of Italy, which took place in 1866, the introduction of electricity in 1888 allowed the modernization of the plants and an increase in industrial production. From 1 November 1915 the city hosted the headquarters of the Supreme Command Group which, on 15 April 1916, became the IV Group and then remained until May 1917. On 10 April 1917 the XI Group was also born and remained until the battle of Caporetto.

The destruction caused by the First World War and the crisis of 1929 dragged the cotton sector into a slow decline from which it would never recover. After the Second World War, Zanussi (now part of the Swedish multinational Electrolux), until then only a small company producing economic kitchens fueled by wood or gas, became a European giant in the field of household appliances, coming to occupy many of the inhabitants of the city. The great take-off of Zanussi industry, in the 60s of the twentieth century, gave an impulse to the city's demographic growth and thus Pordenone tripled the number of inhabitants, thanks to immigration coming in particular from the province of Treviso and southern Italy.

In 1968 Pordenone became the provincial capital. Until then, western Friuli was part of the province of Udine. Since 1974 it has also been the bishopric of the diocese of Concordia-Pordenone. The episcopal seminary with the school of theology had already been located in Pordenone since 1919. Recently the city has become the seat of a university consortium which hosts university courses organized by the University of Udine, the University of Trieste and the ISIA of Rome. Furthermore, since 2002 the technological pole has been active to promote the culture of innovation in local businesses.

 

Chronology

899 - Torre is conquered by the Magyars
1278 - Pordenone definitively passes to the Holy Roman Empire under the Habsburgs
1291 - Alberto I grants the first legislative chapters for the city which will constitute the first nucleus of the Pordenone Statutes
1318 - On 23 August a fire breaks out which destroys all the wooden buildings, which were the majority. From this cataclysm, a new urban structure was conceived, with a main road axis from which the minor streets would have departed
1347 - The bell tower of the Cathedral of San Marco is inaugurated
1438 - On April 24, the first and last major modification is made to the Pordenone Statutes, which regularize issues of public order, private and criminal law, adding rules on the organization of professions
1447 - The Pordenone nobility is born, made up of twelve families
1487 - An epidemic of plague, the first in the city, halves the number of inhabitants
1508 - On April 20 Bartolomeo d'Alviano conquers the city of Pordenone, and therefore for the first time the city passes under the influence of the republic of Venice
1528 - Another plague epidemic strikes the city
1537 - Livio d'Alviano, son of Bartolomeo, dies in battle. The lordship of the d'Alviano in the city ends, which then passes under the direct control of the Republic of Venice
1556 - Another plague epidemic strikes the city
1631 - A plague epidemic, the largest in the city's history, halves the population
1836 - A cholera epidemic strikes the city
1886 - Cholera appears again in the city
1917 - On November 6, the Austro-German army enters the city and occupies the city for almost a year
1918 - On 1 November the invading army leaves Pordenone, giving way to the Italian army
1945 - On April 30, the Allies enter the city, the city is free from war
1968 - On February 22 the province of Pordenone is established, the city becomes its capital
1968 - On 1 September 1968 with the established province the first vehicles with the new PN number plate are registered. The first, registered PN0001, is a FIAT 500.
2017 - The province established in 1968 is abolished