Aquileia (a town of approximately 3,500 inhabitants in the province of Udine, Friuli Venezia Giulia. 40km south of Udine and 40km northwest of Trieste, at 5m altitude in the Friulian plain at the edge of the Grado lagoon) was, at the peak of the Roman imperial period (approximately 150-250 AD), one of the four or five largest cities in the Western Roman Empire: the ancient Aquileia had a population estimated at 100,000-200,000 inhabitants (the uncertainty is characteristic of ancient population estimates, but all serious scholars agree on a figure in this range), a major commercial port on the Natisone river connecting to the Adriatic, the primary Roman city in the northeastern frontier zone facing the Pannonian and Germanic threats, and the administrative capital of the Regio X Venetia et Histria, the Roman administrative district covering modern Veneto and Friuli. The gap between the ancient Aquileia (100,000+ inhabitants, one of the largest cities in the world) and the modern Aquileia (3,500 inhabitants, an agricultural village) is the result of the specific sequence of destructions: Attila the Hun (452 AD) effectively destroyed the city and dispersed its population to the lagoon islands where Venice would then be founded. Next barbarian invasions prevented recovery. And the medieval realignment of political geography toward the Patriarchate of Aquileia (the most powerful ecclesiastical principality in the northeastern Italian arc, whose authority from the 6th to the 18th century was based in the surviving religious infrastructure of the ancient city rather than in a rebuilt urban center) produced the specific paradox of a major religious institution in a physically minor settlement.
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Aquileia: Mosaic, Basilica, and Port
The Basilica Mosaic Floor
The Basilica patriarcale di Aquileia (the 4th-century early Christian basilica, the current building is largely the 11th-century Romanesque reconstruction by Patriarch Poppo, but the 4th-century mosaic floor from the original Theodoran basilica of 313-319 AD is preserved beneath and partially visible through transparent floor panels in the Romanesque nave) has the largest surviving early Christian mosaic floor in the western world: approximately 700 square meters of 4th-century mosaic (the mosaic covering the entire floor of the original double basilica, the north hall and the south hall of the Theodoran complex, with the connecting vestibule) depicting the specific early Christian iconographic program of the Constantinian period: the Jonah cycle (the prophet swallowed and regurgitated by the fish, the specific early Christian baptismal allegory of death and rebirth), the Good Shepherd, the portrait busts of the donors, and the extensive decorative border program. The mosaic is accessible from the Basilica interior during opening hours (approximately €3 entry).
The Roman Archaeological Area
The Aquileia archaeological area (the Roman forum, the port canal, and the funerary monuments, spread across the open agricultural landscape around the medieval village on a flat site whose low intensity of modern construction has preserved more Roman urban fabric than any comparable Italian site except Pompeii) is accessible on foot from the Basilica: the forum (the monumental center of the Roman city, with the column bases and the paved surface surviving at near-original level), the port canal (the Natisone tributary canal that connected Aquileia to the Adriatic, with the stone quay surviving on the northern bank), and Via Sacra (the Roman road lined with funerary monuments, the most intact Roman funerary road in northeastern Italy) are the primary components.
Q&A: Aquileia
Is Aquileia worth a detour from Venice or Trieste?
Absolutely. Aquileia is one of the five or six most important archaeological sites in Italy (alongside Pompeii, Ostia Antica, Agrigento, and Paestum) and one of the most seriously undervisited relative to its significance: the Aquileia UNESCO site (designated 1998, the archaeological area and the Basilica) receives approximately 300,000 visitors per year versus Pompeii's 3.5 million, a ratio that reflects the geographical remoteness of Aquileia rather than any difference in archaeological importance. From Venice: 1.5 hours by car via the A4 motorway to Palmanova, then the SP road to Aquileia. By train to Cervignano del Friuli (the nearest station, 6km by taxi or local bus). From Trieste: 45 minutes by car.
Internal Links
- Friuli Venezia Giulia: Aquileia e il Confine
- Aquileia: Biglietti e Orari del Sito UNESCO
- Patriarcato di Aquileia: Il Potere Ecclesiastico
- Mosaici Paleocristiani: Aquileia nel Contesto
- Fotografare i Mosaici di Aquileia: Tecnica e Luce
- Friuli in Bassa Stagione: Aquileia Senza Folla
- Treno per Aquileia: Da Venezia e da Trieste
