| Municipality of Cividale del Friuli
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Pop.: 11,355
Area: 50,57 sq. km, 135 m a.s.l.
Neighbourhoods: Carraria, Fornalis, Gagliano, Grupignano,,
Purgessimo, Rualis, Rubignacco, Sanguarzo, Spessa
Town Hall: Corso Paolino d Aquileia, 2 - 33043 Cividale del Friuli
Phone.: 0432.710100 Fax: 0432.710103
www.comune.cividale-del-friuli.ud.it
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Palazzo Levrini with its 16th-century
painted façade and the medieval house in
the street leading to the Tempietto must not
be slighted either. An unusual monument is
instead the Celtic Hypogeum (Ipogeo
celtico), a singular wet underground vault
with rough sculpted masks. Elegant in its
soaring lines is the Devil's Bridge (Ponte
del Diavolo) over River Natisone, with two
daring bays and single pilaster resting on a
rock in the river. It dates from the
15th century and owes its name to a curious
legend according to which it was built
overnight by the devil in exchange for the
soul of a Cividale inhabitant. A visit to Fŕrie
Geretti, the old smithery in the Stretta della
Giudaica, open to the public since 1999, is a
must, too. The city also boasts several
churches, most of them rich in works of art.
Interesting 14th- and 15th-century frescoes
(the oldest - St. Ludovico and Saints - due to
workers from Rimini, while others are
probably by Friulian artists following
Vitale's style) decorate the choir and nave
walls in the Gothic church of S. Francesco
which, for the simplicity of lines and purity
of spaces is considered one of the greatest
examples of Franciscan architecture in
Friuli. In the vestry is a 1693 cycle of
frescoes by Giulio Quaglio from Lombardy.
14th-century frescoes portraying episodes
from the life of S. Biagio decorate the small
cupola of the left chapel of the church of
S. Biagio, charming for its location on River
Natisone. Always in the chapel, a much
damaged 15th-century cycle of the months is
still visible in the base. The church of
S. Giovanni in Xenodochio (an ancient
word indicating a "pilgrims' hospice")
used to have two paintings by Paolo
Veronese, now in the Archaeological
Museum, though there remain a large marble
altar with statues by Jacopo Contiero and
some 18th-century paintings in the
presbytery. In the Church of SS. Silvestro
and Valentino are frescoes by Pietro Venier
(1700s), in that of S. Pietro ai Volti is a
large painting portraying the Saviour and
SS. Sebastian and Rocco realized by Palma
the Younger around 1606 on the occasion of
the plague the city had suffered in 1598.
A notable altarpiece by Nicola Grassi (ca.
1740) is preserved in the church of
S. Martino, where the altar of Ratchis once
used to be. Finally, the partly porticoed
Piazza Paolo Diacono is worth a visit, the
real heart of the city on which an old house
fronts that is believed to have been the house
of the great Lombard writer.
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| CIVIDALE
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Cividât no je une vile, ma une
ponte di citât /Cividale is not a
village but a small town, as the
lines of a famous Friulian villotta
rightly sing: Cividale, in fact, since
its foundation by the
Romans, was the
main city in the area and under
the Lombards the capital of
the Duchy of Friuli. Still
today, thanks to its
urban plan, its
monuments, the...go
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