Udine stands at the centre of the Region Friuli-Venezia Giulia in a favoured geographical position, near a wide and pleasant arch of morainic hills, on the international route which links up the south and the north-east of Europe.

The earliest mention of Udine can be found in a document dating back to 983; it is a charter with which Emperor Otto II granted the castle of Udine (together with those of other four neighbouring localities) to the Patriarch of Aquileia.
Yet excavations carried out in different times trace its history back to many centuries before. It may be taken for granted that during the second millenium B.C. there was already a more or less steady settlement in the place.

The second important date in the evolution of Udine was the year 1223, when Patriarch Berthold of Andechs-Merania obtained from Emperor Frederick II the confirmation of his sovereign rights and granted Udine the market which in a few years was removed from Old Market Place to New Market Square (piazza Matteotti), so rapid was the growth of the town. Yet the aspect of the city was sharply modelled only after 1420 when Udine and the whole of Friuli were part of the Venetian Republic.

"Under the rule of Venice our land followed the destiny of the state it was linked to: we would mention several raids by the Turks (from 1472 to 1499). the war between the Republic and Emperor Maximilian (1508-1514), the war of Gradisca (1615-1617) between the Venetians and the Imperials. In 1797 Friuli was occupied by the Napoleonic troops and the following year, on account of the Treaty of Campoformido, it came under the rule of the House of Austria. Yet defeated several times by the French it resumed the permanent domination of Friuli only in 1813. After the unsuccessful liberal rising of 1848, on the 2nd of October 1866 the Province of Udine was annexed to the Reign of Italy" (Rizzi).

During World War I (1915-1918) Udine was the seat of the Italian Supreme Comand. In 1963 the city and its Province together with Trieste, Gorizia and Pordenone constituted Friuli-Venezia Giulia, a self-governing Region with Special Ordinance.

The ideal starting-point to visit the city is the Castle hill on which many are the legends. The most intriguing is the one according to which the soil comprising the hill was carried there by the soldiers of Attila the Hun, who transported it in their helmets to allow their ferocius commander to feast his eyes upon the sight of Aquileia burning in the distance.

The residence of chamberlains, patriarchs and Venetian governors over the centuries, the castle visitable today was built on the site of the one destroyed in 1511 earthquake and has just been restored as it was seriously damaged by another recent earthquake (1976). Remarkable is the Hall of Parliament of the sovereign State of Friuli where Giambattista Tiepolo, G. B. Grassi and Pomponio Amalteo worked. The Gallery of Art is now situated on the first floor.

The House of the Confraternity of Santa Maria di Castello is the only building that survived the 1511 earthquake. The construction dates back to the 15th century. The House of the Peasantry, on the northern edge of the hill, was rebuilt in 1931, following the plan of a 15th century edifice that was once situated on the corner of Via Rauscedo and Via Vittorio Veneto.

The church dedicated to St. Mary of the Castle is probably the oldest in Udine, judging from extant fragments dating back to the Lombard era. It lost its parochial status in 1263 when it was annexed to the parish of Sant'Odorico (now the Cathedral), a more capacious church.
It was renovated many times in the course of the centuries (the facade was entirely rebuilt after the catastrophic earthquake of 1511). Its three naves preserve the suggestive atmosphere of silence and contemplation so peculiar to the oldest churches.
The Venetian Gothic "portico" with steps and ramps leading down the hill was commissioned in 1487 by the Venetian Governor Tommaso Lippomano.

Turning his back to the castle and going beyond the Bollani Arch, projected by Andrea Palladio (1556), the visitor is met by the splendid vista of Piazza Libertà, the heart of Udine, frequently referred to as "the most beautiful Venetian square on mainland". The most important sights of the city are to be found here, the remains of a Venetian past that began in 1420 and lasted until the end of the 18th century.
The most outstanding element of the square is undoubtedly the famous "Loggia del Lionello" with its alternating courses of pink and white stone. It was begun in 1448 on a project by Nicolo Lionello, a local goldsmith, and was rebuilt after a project designed by architect Andrea Scala when it was seriously damaged by a terrible fire in 1876. Opposite the Loggia del Lionello is the Loggia di San Giovanni, a Renaissance construction undertaken by Bernardino da Morcote.
Other noteworthy monuments in the square are the Fountain built in 1542 and designed by an architect from Bergamo, Giovanni Carrara; the Columns bearing the Venetian Lion and the Statue of Justice (1614); the Statues of Hercules and Cacus (affectionately known as "Florean" and "Venturin") and the Statue of Peace (1819) which was donated to Udine by Emperor Franz I to commemorate the peace Treaty of Campoformido.

Through Via Mercatovecchio, the most characteristic street of the town, the visitor arrives at Piazza Matteotti - San Giacomo; this was the first real square the city of Udine had, a "real-life square" . In it on the first Sunday of every month takes place an antique-trade little market. In the centre stands a fountain designed in 1543 by Giovanni da Udine, a pupil of Raffaello.
The church, dedicated to St. James, closes the west side of the square and is one of the oldest in the city. It was erected in 1378, but its Lombardesque facade was projected by Bernardino da Morcote at the beginning of the 16th century, while the chapel on the right side was added towards the middle of the 17th century.

Walking past the front of the Town Hall, entirely made of Istrian stone, erected between 1910 and 1931, an example of Art Nouveau projected by Raimondo D'Aronco the famous architect from Udine, one reaches the Cathedral, an imposing edifice built on a Latin cross-shaped plan with three naves and chapels along the sides. The oldest part goes back to 1335.
At the beginning of the 18th century a radical project of transformation involving both the exterior and the interior was undertaken at the desire and wholly at the expence of the Manin family. The Baroque interior has monumental dimensions and contains many works of art by G. B. Tiepolo, P. Amalteo, L. Dorigny. On the ground floor of the bell tower there is a chapel which is completely adorned with frescoes by Vitale da Bologna (1349).

Close to the Cathedral, the small Purity Oratory (1757) has one of the greatest master pieces by G. B. Tiepolo: the fresco on the ceiling shows "Our Lady of the Assumption" . But it is in the Archbishop s Palace that Tiepolo achieved one of the highest peaks of his stylistics. We also suggest a visit to the Gallery of Modern Art, the Friulian Museum of Natural History and the Ossarium Temple which holds the mortal remains of 25,000 soldiers killed in World

After a comparatively short struggle, Venice became mistress of Friuli in 1420.
Being compelled to protect her own borders from the Turks, she sent a certain Antonio Barbaro to look for strategical positions where to erect mighty fortifications. Palmanova was found to be the most suitable. The fortress-town was planned by architect Vincenzo Scamozzi in 1593.

It is the model of an ideal town in its perfectly symmetric star-shape. There are 9 points and a large central "piazza" from which 6 radial streets diverge.

The Villa is an imposing architectural structure of uncommon beauty, built by the powerful Manin family, between the 17th and 18th century. Inside the chapel, which was probably designed by Domenico Rossi (1707-1718), there are sculptures by Giuseppe Torretti (1719-1723).

Ludovico Manin, the last Doge of Venice, lived in Villa Manin; Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine Beauharnais were there one night between the 27th and the 28th of August 1797 and there on the 17th of October 1797 France and Austria signed the Treaty of Campoformido.

Many distinctive features and pictoresque foreshortenings adorn the park which is rich in rare botanical species, artificial small lakes, hilloks, valleys and groups of statues.

The Villa, bought and restored by the Region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, is now centre of the Restoration School and of the Institute for the Reckoning of the Cultural and Environmental Estate. In the left exedra shops and handicraft workrooms are being equipped, while the central structure receives yearly noteworthy exhibitions and shows.

From the top of a hill the little town enjoys a beautiful landscape: the semicircle of hills all around.

Its strategic position and the presence of a rich Jewish community favoured trade and contributed to make San Daniele del Friuli a powerful little town, which was a free city for a long time.
Two famous men, Guarnerio d'Artegna (1387-1467) and Giusto Fontanini (1666-1736), founded and enriched what is today considered one of the richest libraries in Italy: the Guarneriana Library.

The Cathedral is an imposing building. restructured between 1707 and 1725 by architect Domenico Rossi. The church of Sant'Antonio Abate has the most beautiful series of Renaissance frescoes in Friuli, the work by Pellegrino from San Daniele (1476-1547).

Typical of San Daniele is the production of the famous ham which takes an incomparable taste because of its special processing and the peculiar climatic conditions of the place.

A visit to Gemona doesn't only give you a chance to see the town considered the heart of Friuli, but above all, it enables you to understand what meant to Friuli the earthquake in 1976. The air you breathe walking along the narrow streets of the centre is no longer the same as before: everything has changed, although the reconstruction has respected the artistic and cultural peculiarities of this land in every slightest detail; it is however a stimulating kind of "new" deeply rooted in its historical past.

Among the ancient medioeval monuments which have been completely restored the visitor can admire the Town Hall, with its harmonious Renaissance lines in Venetian Lombard taste and the splendid Cathedral, one of the most expressive examples of religious Romanesque-Gothic architecture existing in the Region.

In 1965 the citadel of Venzone was declared "monument of great historical-artistic interest" by a governmend decree, but the earthquake in 1976 destroyed it almost completely. It was rebuilt in a philologic way, that is "where it was and such as it was", between 1982 and 1986 with its 150 buildings, of which about fifty are of great historical-artistic value.

The medioeval walls as well as the Town Hall in its harmonious Gothic-Renaissance lines have been rebuilt and the reconstruction of the cathedral is nearly over; the church is one of the most remarkable monuments in the Region; its origins date probably back to the year one thousand while some of its structural parts were built in 1251.

AZIENDA REGIONALE PER LA PROMOZIONE TURISTICA
UFFICIO DECENTRATO Dl UDINE
Piazza I Maggio, 7
Tel. (0432) 295972 - Fax (0432) 504743