| Municipality of Aquileia
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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
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at Monfalcone
(2nd cent. AD).
The Middle Ages
experienced a
revival of the
city since the
Carolingian
age which
saw the
Patriarchate
entrusted to
highborn
Patriarchs
by the
exceptional personality. Maxentius (811-817)
ordered the old basilica to be enlarged in the
shape of a Latin cross and the presbytery to
be raised in order to create the Martyrs'
crypt (decorated with
Venetian-Byzantine
12th-century frescoes
with Stories
of SS. Ermacora and Fortunato and from the
New Testament); not only had he
architectural elements and early medieval
fittings added showing mysterious cosmic
symbols and symbols of salvation, but he
also ordered the Pagans' Church to be built
as well. Another Patriarch who greatly
contributed to the growth of the Basilica
Patriarcale was Poppone (1019-1042), who
made structural changes
both in terms of style (early
Romanesque) and static
quality, and added new
liturgical items aimed at
reminding men of the need for salvation
from sin, as the first millennium of Christ's
Passion was drawing nearer (1031).
Among Poppone's new introductions are
the capitals, part of the outside and
inside walls, the apse frescoes
and
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Patriarchs' cathedra,
the Holy Sepulchre,
the colonnades,
not least the
imposing
bell tower
(73 m
high).
Poppone's
"jubilee"
works
were
heavily
jeopardized by the
1348 earthquake, which
forced Patriarch Marquardo
(1365-1381) to start restoration
works in line with the new Gothic
style clearly visible in the new pointed
arches and the figurative capitals on of
the cross vault pilasters. Gothic is also the
style of the Chapel of St. Ambrogio. The
wooden painted ceiling in the transept, cross
and nave (the latter shaped as an overturned
hull), the great tribune and ciborium are
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15th-century, while the organ, in a
neo-Renaissance transposition of the same
style, was a present from Franz Josef to the
Aquileia community, as the city was under
Austrian rule until 1915; and it was an
Austrian archaeological team that began, by
chance, the excavations and carried them out
from 1893 to 1912, which brought to light the
so-called Theodorian complex (began by
Bishop Theodore - as stated in the celebrative
epigraph- after Constantine's Edict of Milan
in 313 which granted religious freedom)
and the remains of later basilica: namely,
the largest mosaic floor in the western world,
designed for three connected halls that,
step by step, gave access to catechumenal
education (southern Theodorian hall),
confirmation (?) (transverse hall with
"cocciopesto" - a mixture of mortar and terracotta
fragments- floor), and
finally liturgy
(northern
Theodorian
hall). The
latter
hall - see
Excavation
Crypt displays
a
sequence
of animal
figures
in
which a
different
technique
is detected,
probably
due to different liturgical requirements
either in terms of historical period or creed
(gnosticism ?), in which the only figures
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reminiscent of the Christian creed seem to be
the ram (the predestined sacrificial victim,
Christ himself) and the fight between the
cock and the turtle (symbolizing light and
darkness, good and evil, salvation and
damnation). Fragments of this hall were also
found inside the bell tower built on the site.
In the present-day Basilica the iconographic
plan shows uniformity of purpose, as the
primary aim was that of leading the converts
to the complete awareness of gaining access
to the new life after resurrection from death
through conversion to Christianity, through
adult christening by immersion; several
images evoked the gradual path of converts
making them feel as parts of a greater divine...
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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
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