Gemona

Gemona stands where the Tagliamento emerges from the Alps toward the Friulian plain. Its position on the road across the mountains made the town a valuable stronghold; the Lombard historian Paul the Deacon described its castle as impregnable. In 1184 Frederick Barbarossa granted a charter for its market. Gemona later returned to the authority of the patriarchs of Aquileia, whose lands were absorbed by Venice in 1420; after the republic fell, it passed to Austria in 1798.