Aquileia

Aquileia lies on the Friulian plain near the Adriatic lagoons. Founded by Rome as a colony in 181 BC, it became a major city and an early Christian centre. Its basilica preserves splendid mosaics, while the title of its patriarch carried authority over a wide territory long after the ancient city had declined.

In the fourteenth century the patriarchal state reached from the Piave toward the Julian Alps and Istria. Venice conquered much of Friuli in 1420, ending the patriarch's temporal rule there. In 1445 Patriarch Ludovico Trevisan accepted the loss of his lands in return for a Venetian pension. Only Venetians could subsequently hold the patriarchal title. Friuli thereafter was governed for the republic from Udine, although the ecclesiastical title of Aquileia endured.