| Municipality of San Daniele del Friuli
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Pop.: 7,892
Area: 34,67 sq. km, 252 m a.s.l.
Neighbourhoods: Aonedis, Cimano, Villanova
Town Hall: Via Garibaldi, 23 - 33038 San Daniele del Friuli
Phone.: 0432.946532 Fax: 0432.946534
www.comune.sandanieledelfriuli.ud.it
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It is one of the
historic cities of
Friuli, with a welldefined
role since
Roman times. It is
also a centre of culture and
especially art, thanks to the
enlightened fervour of some
of its citizens. In fact, it was
in S. Daniele that the first
public library was opened in
1466 (and one of the first in
Italy) with one hundred and
sixty codes donated by
humanist Guarnerio
d'Artegna, which he had
partly purchased, partly had
had written and illuminated.
To this original collection
several precious volumes were
added with time, in particular
the thousands of volumes
donated by Giusto Fontanini
in 1734. Housed in the former
Town Hall, a stern 15th-16thcentury
building with loggia,
the Biblioteca Guarneriana
contains about eighty
incunabula (one of which, the
Iustiniani Constitutiones of
1482, has an exquisite
miniature by Antonio Maria
from Padua) and dozens of
humanistic codes, including a
14th-century Divine Comedy
(the Inferno is
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commented by
Jacopo Alighieri and Graziano
Bambaglioli) decorated with
some illuminated initials
similar to those decorating the
Divine Comedy preserved in
the National Library in Paris.
The gem in the library,
however, is the so-called
Byzantine Bible, written and
illuminated in the 1190s in
Jerusalem at the time of the
Latin Kingdom by an
illuminator of the
metropolitan school. Though
in bad conditions owing to
awful mutilations, the bible
still shows many illuminated
initials alternating with
smaller letters embellished
with geometric and floral
motifs. As for religious
buildings, the
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Duomo of
S. Michele, remodelled
between 1707 and 1725 by
Venetian architect Domenico
Rossi, with bronze portals
carrying panels by Nino
Gortan (1982) portraying
Death and Resurrection of
Christ and symbols of the
Evangelists, has good-quality
works inside, as the
monumental font by Carlo da
Carona (1510), a Holy Trinity
altarpiece by Giovanni
Antonio Pordenone, 1534, one
of his deeper felt and better
executed works, the marble
high altar by Francesco
Fosconi (1735), paintings by
Pomponio Amalteo
(Marriage of the Virgin and
Circumcision, 1549) and by
Vincenzo Lugaro (scenes from
the Bible, 1625). The duomo
also contains three paintings
by Valerio Graziano dated
1615, a lovely Virgin with
Child by
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Francesco da Milano
(1520) and three models by
Giambattista Tiepolo
(Assumption, St. John of the
Alms and Decollation of
St. John the Baptist)
prepared around 1735 for
frescoes - never realized - in
the church of Fratta at S.
Daniele. Great importance is
given to the 15th-century
church of S. Antonio Abate
showing the most beautiful
cycle of Renaissance frescoes
in Friuli, painted by Martino
from Udine, called
Pellegrino da S. Daniele
who operated here on several
occasions, probably helped
by disciples, from
1497 to 1522: holy stories
and figures are painted in the
choir, triumphal arch and
right wall, while on the left
wall are painted late
14th-century frescoes.
Rich in works of art are also
the churches of
S. Maria della Fratta,
S. Daniele in Castello, and
Madonna di Strada.
The 18th-century building
housing the Monte di Pietà
(pawnshop) shows a
large painting by
Vincenzo Lugaro.
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| FROM UDINE TO JULIAN PRE-ALPS
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The pleasant hilly area of Friuli, the
strip of land running from Gemona to
San Daniele almost to reach the suburbs
of Udine, has always been, through the
centuries, subject to earthquakes: suffice
it to mention the appalling
earthquakes of 1348
(also mentioned by
the Florentine historian
Filippo Villani), of
1511 (that halfdestroyed
Udine...go
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