Aquileia

Founded as a Roman colony in 181 BC, Aquileia became one of the largest cities of the empire, a river port and road junction with a population estimated in the tens of thousands, before being destroyed by Attila in 452 and declining permanently. Today it is a village of a few thousand. The basilica keeps the floor of an early fourth-century church beneath the later building, about seven hundred and sixty square metres of mosaic showing fishing scenes, animals, portraits and a struggle between a cockerel and a tortoise, viewed from raised walkways. The forum, river port and a crypt of frescoes survive. UNESCO listed it in 1998.

History

The Romans founded Aquileia as a Latin colony in 181 BC, settling 3,000 families at the head of the Adriatic as a frontier fortress, on a spot that had long been the end of the amber trade from the Baltic. It became the capital of the Augustan tenth region and a centre of early Christianity, with close to 100,000 people in the 2nd century AD, and in 452 it was the first city in Italy to be sacked by Attila, so thoroughly that its site was later hard to recognise. Its patriarch fled to Grado, and the patriarchate, split for a time between Grado and the mainland, grew strong enough by the 11th century to rule Friuli: Patriarch Poppo built the present cathedral in 1031 on the site of an earlier church, and it was rebuilt in Gothic style under Marquard of Randeck in 1365-1381. Venice took the patriarchs' lands in the 15th century, the patriarchate was suppressed in 1751, and the archaeological area and basilica are now a World Heritage Site (Wikipedia, Aquileia).

What to look for

• The mosaic floor - 760 square metres of fourth-century work under the basilica.
• The river port - quays and warehouse foundations along the old channel.
• The frescoed crypt - twelfth-century paintings below the church.
• The archaeological museum - finds from a city that vanished.

When to go

April to October; the basilica closes for services and keeps a midday break in some seasons. Summer on the plain is humid with mosquitoes.

Things to know

Most of the Roman city is unexcavated farmland, so the site is smaller than the history suggests. The mosaic is seen from walkways only. The village has few services.

Nearby

Grado lies south on the lagoon; Palmanova is north.

Key facts