| Municipality of Aquileia
|
|
Pop.: 3,330
Area: 36,45 sq. km, 5 m a.s.l.
Neighbourhoods: Belvedere
Town Hall: P. Garibaldi, 7 - 33051 Aquileia
Phone.: 0431.91087 Fax:
www.comune.aquileia.ud.it
|
|
|
Founded as a colony by the
Romans in 181 BC to create
both a bastion against possible
barbarian aggressions and as a
bridgehead for the conquest of
eastern Italy, though giving Rome a valuable
base for such conquest, Aquileia acquired
greater and greater importance as a river port
thanks to the large, at the time, River
Natisone-Torre, a role which grew at the
same pace as the rising Roman Empire, so
much so that the colony became the
favoured port for the Danube
provinces that found here
supplies of eastern products
and could market their own
goods here. A real
crossroads of routes,
Aquileia knew its
prime in the first
two centuries of
the Empire,
although the
earliest
symptoms of the deep crisis of the 3rd century
were already felt. In 238 AD it was besieged
by Maximinus the Thracian during a period
of disorientation of the central government
and the recovery was hard. Nonetheless, the
following century saw a revival of the
economic role of the city, which became a
centre of power and of Roman and Christian
culture: it was the ninth city of the empire
and among the most important in Italy. It
was just for this reason that the devastations
caused by Attila's
|
 |
Huns (452 AD) left the
people of the time even more dismayed and
terrified: it was the sunset of a whole
civilization, a time of which marks have
remained in the excavation sites and in the
superb collection of the National
Archaeological Museum, in spite of the
heavy plundering Aquileia suffered. In the
Museum, considered one of the most
important in northern Italy, archaeological
finds are numerous and well arrayed, coming
from both public and private buildings but
mainly from tombs, thus offering a detailed
cross-section
of the society of the time, its
economy, crafts,
|
|
religious rituals, everyday
life, cooking, taste, and fashion, sometimes
the result, as in the case of funeral traditions,
of choices made on the need for
self-assertiveness through one's own
sepulchre. The visit to the Museum leads
visitors through a series of rooms organized
by the type of materials, but remarkable for
their descriptions. Roman history is
introduced by the famous bas-relief of Sulcus
primigenius (foundation of the city,
1st cent. AD) and by the careful chronological
selection of stone or marble heads-portraits
(1st cent. BC - 4th cent. AD), in which artistic
choices are often the result of personal
requirements. Then follow the rooms
dedicated to public and private statuary
(1st cent. BC - 1st cent. AD) with some
extraordinary pieces. The finds concerning
crafts are easily comprehensible and
involving, while the Attic sarcophagi
(2nd cent. AD) seem to have been a sort of
status symbol. The rich room dedicated to
religious items ideally extends to the first
one on the first floor, where
all types of documents show
the co-existence of different
religions and experiences
which are sometimes difficult
to fully understand in their
complexity. Apart from a
small showcase with small
Christian items, this section
displays a very rare bronze
chandelier (4th cent. AD) with
symbols hinting at salvation.
Great attention has always
drawn the collection of carved
stones (half-precious stones)
and ambers (fossil resins)
arriving in Aquileia raw then transformed in
highly valuable jewels and personal items to
be worn or stored, either to propitiate the
gods or keep disease
|
|
away, or finally used as
seals (gems). In the same way, the glassware
exhibition shows that the highly developed
techniques used in the Roman Age compare
to today's worldwide renown Murano
production. The sections dedicated to metals,
pottery and numismatics complement and
enrich the museum archaeological offer, as
well as two outstanding bronze finds: an
applique portraying the head of a wind deity
of Hellenistic tradition and the portrait of a
3rd-century emperor. Outside, the museum
houses a series of lapidary galleries where the
numerous stone findings are arrayed, among
which the epigraphic collection must be
remembered for its high
historical value, one of
the largest in Italy (4000
documented "tituli"),
as well as the mosaic
fragments (1st cent.
BC - 4th cent. AD)
representing, in
their continuity,
plenty, quality and
variety, the best of
the city's elegant
sobriety. A small
section houses a
Roman ship found...
|
 |
| Next
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| BASSA FRIULANA
|
|
 |
The name "Bassa"
identifies the Friuli plains
extending towards the Adriatic,
beginning more or less from the so-called
Stradalta (just a bit south
of the present-day
Strada
Napoleonica),
namely below the line of
resurgences from which
rivers or streams or
simply natural springs
often originate,
contributing to shaping the...go
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
