| 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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Founded by the Romans around
50 BC with the name of Forum
Iulii (which later on came to
identify the whole of Friuli),
Cividale del Friuli is renown for
being the "Lombards' city" owing to the
innumerable treasures related to Lombard
domination. The city boasts several
monuments, first of all the Duomo which,
although often modified in the centuries, still
shows the traits of the original design of the
building erected in the 15th century on the
site of a sacred building that had existed
since 737. The façade built by Bartolomeo
delle Cisterne since 1453, was completed by
Pietro Lombardo in 1503. The interior with
nave, aisles and raised presbytery, is the
result of the changes brought about by
Giorgio Massari and his disciple Bernardino
Maccaruzzi in the 18th century. The Duomo
contains notable works of art: a 15th-century
Vesperbild of German school, paintings by
Matteo Ponzone (Enthroned Virgin with
Saints, 1617), Palma the Younger (Stoning
of St. Stephen and Last Supper, 1606),
Pomponio Amalteo (Annunciation, 1546),
frescoes in the vestry by Giuseppe Diziani
and Giuseppe Mattioni. Remarkable are also
the Monument to Patriarch Nicolň Donato
(Giovanni Antonio di Bernardino da Carona,
1513), a large wooden Crucifix (18th cent.),
and the equestrian monument to
Marcantonio di Manzano (Girolamo
Paleario, 1621). On the high altar is the late 12th-century
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Pellegrino II's silver altarpiece,
a spectacular piece (cm 102x203) in thick
embossed silver leaf gilded on fire, which
constitutes one of the gems of Italian
jeweller's art. A door in the left aisle leads
into the Christian Museum (Museo
Cristiano) exhibiting two absolute
masterpieces of the Lombard period: the
Altar of Ratchis, parallelepipedal in shape
with exquisite bas-relief portrayals of
Maiestas Domini, Visitation, Adoration of
the Magi and the Baptistery of Callisto,
with its elegant harmonious arches, showing
on the parapet Sigvaldo's Frontal with
symbols of the
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Evangelists. Unique in its
kind is the so-called Lombard Temple
(Tempietto Longobardo), datable to the
mid-8th century, still preserving large
fragments of the original decorations and
later 14th-century frescoes, apart from stucco
decorations (where stucco was made of a
mixture of plaster, lime and marble powder)
in which horizontal stripes with stylised
roses frame, huddled onto the wall, the
statues of six women Saints of excellent
quality; moreover, the unframed archivolt is
splendidly decorated with a spiralled vine
shoot carrying bunches of grapes and vine
leaves. Other outstanding monuments are the
churches of S. Francesco, with 14th-century
frescoes, of S. Biagio (14th- and 15th-century
frescoes), and of S. Pietro (showing a lovely
altarpiece by Palma the Younger). But
Palazzo Brosadola, with a large cycle of
frescoes by Francesco Chiarottini (1785),
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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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