The Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia is not often on tourist maps and hides a large number of sights from the ancient city of Aquileia to the magical town of Palmanova, the only city in the world built entirely according to the princes of the Renaissance – in the shape of a perfect nine-pointed star to the Miramare castle built by Maximilian of Habsburg, the emperor of Mexico who was shot thousands of kilometers away by rebels
Italy has many famous cities, regions, lakes and islands: Rome, Milan, Venice, Tuscany, Sicily, Corsia, Puglia, Capri, Amalfi, Dolomites, Lago di Garda, Lago di Como, San Remo, Genoa… The Friuli-Venezia Giulia region is not one of those that are on the first pages of tourist offers when it comes to the Apennine peninsula. We usually pass through it on our way to Venice, Milan or skiing in the Dolomites, possibly stop to buy something in Palmanova Shopping Village and that’s it. However, this region, in addition to Trieste, which is well-known to Serbs and others from the former Yugoslavia and has become increasingly popular in recent years, which is also its capital, has numerous other hidden attractions. Among the larger cities on its territory, in addition to Trieste, there are also Gorica, Udine and Poderone.
The Friuli-Julian Region was completely created by the annexation of “Zone A” to Italy in 1954. In 1964, the Republic of Italy decided to combine its part of the former Free Territory of Trieste with Friuli, which until then consisted of the provinces of Udine and Gorica. The province of Pordenone was created only in 1968 by separating from the province of Udine. The newly created region was given a certain autonomy. Since this merger created a region with a diverse population of different cultures and history, it did not go without friction in the past. The decision to declare Trieste the capital of the region was accompanied by the disagreement of the Friuli population, who are still in large numbers against that decision, considering Udine to be a better solution.
AQUILEIA
Aquileia, where we first arrived, today has 3,400 inhabitants, and in the 4th century AD, before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it was the 4th largest city in Italy after Rome, Milan and Capua. Aquileia is best known for the ancient Patriarchal Church from the 11th century, today under the protection of UNESCO. Ancient Aquileia was located ten kilometers south of the lower reaches of the Soča River and about 7 km from the sea, so it represented a stronghold for closing the narrow belt between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea. Due to its favorable location, it grew from a military camp into a city, and was also the main base for Roman military operations towards the Danube River. The year of foundation is taken as 181. Aquileia was connected to the sea by canals, and many roads led to it. Today, Aquileia, along with Ravenna, is the most important archaeological site in northern Italy. Several ancient Roman artifacts were found during the excavation, and most of them are still undiscovered under the meadows. In 340, Emperor Constantine II was killed in front of the city walls in an attempt to seize the city from his brother Constans I. In 381, the Council of Aquileia was held there, presided over by Saint Ambrose, at which Arianism was condemned. The Huns captured Aquileia in 452 after a three-month siege and razed it to the ground. Aquileia was briefly restored, until it fell again to the Lombards in 568. The Lombard duke of Friuli ruled Aquileia and the surrounding area from Cedad until in 774 Charlemagne captured Lombardy and made it a Frankish duchy with Duke Eric of Friuli at its head. Under Frankish rule, life returned to these parts at the end of the 8th and the beginning of the 9th century. The bishop of Aquileia, who was on the run, returned and received the title of patriarch.
After the collapse of the Frankish state in the 10th century, the inhabitants suffered marauding attacks by the Hungarians. By the 11th century, the Patriarch of Aquileia had become powerful enough to secure temporary rule over Friuli and Aquileia. Thus, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire gave the patriarch that region as a feudal possession. However, the patriarch’s authority was constantly the reason for territorial disputes among the surrounding nobility. In the first half of the 11th century, Aquileia was rebuilt, and the rebuilding was led by the partarch. Since then it has been called Agle, Aglaja, Oglej, Slavic Oglaj. In 1420, Aquileia fell under the rule of the Republic of Venice. The Patriarchate was abolished in 1751, and this area fell under the jurisdiction of the diocese in Udine and Gorica. Aquileia was one of the largest and richest Roman cities. Excavations revealed one street and the northwestern corner of the city walls, while the State Archaeological Museum contains over 20,000 inscriptions, sculptures and other antiquities (glass vessels, Roman coins, etc.) from Aquileia. Most of the Roman remains still lie undiscovered under the meadows of Aquileia, forming a great archaeological treasure – the largest intact Roman city.
The Patriarchal Basilica is a magnificent building with a mosaic floor, and it played a key role in the Christianization of a large part of central Europe in the early Middle Ages. This basilica with a flat roof was built by Patriarch Popo in 1031 on the site of an older church, and was extended in 1379 by Patriarch Marquad in the Gothic style.
The Romanesque-Gothic facade is connected to the courtyard of the Pagan church and the remains of the baptistery from the 5th century. The interior is a three-nave basilica with fascinatingly preserved floor mosaics from the 4th century (I liked the motif of the biblical story of Jonah and the big fish the most), while the wooden roof is from 1526, and the frescoes on the walls are from different eras; in the chapel of St. Peter are from the 4th century, in the apse they are from the 11th century. The so-called “Crypt of frescoes”, under the presbytery, there is a cycle of frescoes from the 12th century depicting the roots of Christianity in Aquileia and St. Hermagoras, the first bishop. The archaeological excavations and the patriarchal basilica were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in Europe in 1998.
A Roman road ran from Aquileia to Singidunum. It was 335 Roman miles long, or 530 km. It took 20 days on foot to reach Sirmium from Aquileia, and an additional three days to Singidunum, for a total of 23 days. They covered about 20 to 25 km per day on foot.
GRADO and PALMANOVA
We had lunch on the seashore, in Grado, a former fishing village, now a tourist town of 7,500 inhabitants. The town was built on the edge of a marsh, due to the drainage of the settlement, several canals were dug through it, so it looks like a “little Venice”.
As a coastal city, this place began to gain importance during the 5th century at the time of the Varavarian incursions into northern Italy, when it began to serve as a refuge for refugees from the beleaguered towns in the hinterland. When the Lombards occupied nearby Aquileia, the then Metropolitan of Aquileia, Paulinus, took refuge in Grado in 568. From that time, this place became the residence of the metropolitans of Aquileia, who in time were also called patriarchs. Since the rival jurisdiction in old Aquileia was subsequently restored opposite them, the Gradec branch of the Patriarchate of Aquileia eventually became known as the Gradec Patriarchate, which existed until 1451.
We spent the night in the castle Castello di Spessa. This place is at the same time – a hotel, restaurants, winery, spa, golf courses with 18 holes and 100 hectares under vineyards. The cellars are located 18 meters underground, part of them in a bunker built before the Second World War. There was also an estate here during the Roman Empire, the castle has existed since the 13th century and was built by the Ungrispach family. Today’s appearance of Castello di Spessa mainly originates from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The wealthy merchant Rodolfo Voelkl bought the castle between 1879 and 1880 and initiated a complete reconstruction, designed by the Trieste architect Ruggero Berlam and completed in 1901. The medieval castle was then thoroughly remodeled in the Neo-Gothic style with the tower, crenellated crowns and decorative elements we see today. Of the original medieval building, mostly parts of the walls and basements carved into the rock remain.
Most people know Palmanova as the popular Shopping Village, and right next to it, a few kilometers from the highway, there is a medieval town known as the only one in the world built entirely according to the principles of the Renaissance. The city has the ideal shape of a regular octagon with a spacious square in the geometrical center. In 2017, the fortress was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Venetian system of defensive fortifications of the 16th and 17th centuries.
The hosts made an effort to show it to us in the best possible way, so they took us on a helicopter tour over the entire region. The sights were fascinating – on one side the snow-covered white peaks of the Dolomites, on the other the blue waters of the Adriatic and the town of Gradi as “Little Venice” and in the middle the perfect octagon of Renaissance Palmanova.
While the rest of the team went to dinner at one of the pizzerias in Palmanova Shoppin Village, my colleague Lara from Slovenia and I decided to take a walk to the nearby village of Visko. Somewhere in the distance it was raining and a double rainbow appeared in front of us, the likes of which I have never seen before in my life. The rain reached Visko, so we took shelter in a local bar where the locals were drinking beer and watching the game. We talked about how in Italy even the smallest and most remote villages are arranged better than the most important tourist attractions in our country. Everything is in measure and style, without huge buildings made of concrete and glass that disturb the ambiance of historic towns and villages. This whole region is full of wineries, apple plantations, farms from which excellent milk and cheeses come, and as World Bee Day was celebrated on May 20th – at every step we encountered writings about the importance of bees for the preservation of the ecosystem not only in rural areas but also in cities (“urban beekeeping”).
MIRAMARE
At the end of our weekend in the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, we had to visit the Miramare Castle not far from Trieste. Built as a gift for Maximilian of Habsburg, brother of Emperor Francis Joseph and future Emperor of Mexico. The castle overlooking the Gulf of Trieste was designed and built between 1856 and 1869 by the famous Viennese architect of that era, Karl Junker. It is surrounded by a large park of 22 hectares with different plants from all the primaries of the planets that Maximilian brought from his many travels as an admiral of the Austrian navy. The castle is divided into seven rooms, on the ground floor was the living room of Maximilian of Habsburg and his wife Charlotte of Belgium. As Trieste passed from Austrian to Italian hands at the end of the First World War – the upper floor of the castle was used between the two wars by Duke Amedeo di Savoia Aosta, who lived in the castle for seven years and changed the appearance of several rooms in the Art Deco style of the time.
It is interesting that staying in the castle did not even bring happiness to Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who spent two nights there with his wife Sofia, from April 9 to 11, 1914. What happened two and a half months later is known.
And the unfortunate Maximilian ended his life at only 32 years old in faraway Mexico. How did it come about? In 1859, Maximilian received the first invitation from Mexican monarchists led by the nobleman José Pablo Martínez del Rio to become Emperor of Mexico. The testimony of the visit of the Mexican delegation that came to offer him the imperial crown of that country is recorded on a canvas located in the Miramare Castle.
In Mexico at that time, there was a fierce conflict between the liberal party led by President Juarez and the conservatives who opposed his reforms. Maximilian initially rejected the offer, curtly replying “Habsburg is not a usurper”. After the intervention of the European powers (France, Belgium, Spain and the United Kingdom) on the side of Juarez’s opponents, under the influence of the French emperor Napoleon III and after General Elie-Frederic Faurey conquered Mexico City, where a plebiscite on the restoration of the monarchy was organized in 1863, and the Second Mexican Empire was proclaimed, Maximilian nevertheless decided to accept the invitation on April 10, 1864 and become the emperor of Mexico. After that decision, he lost his hereditary rights in Austria, and Franjo Joseph himself opposed his brother’s departure to a distant country. Arriving in Mexico on May 28, 1864, he officially became emperor, but he was still not recognized by the republican-liberal party led by Benito Juarez, which waged a war against the French occupation (all other powers withdrew from Mexico after the first intervention and the achievement of their goals, related to the return of Mexican debts).
FIRING PLATOON
During his short reign, Maximilian accepted and endorsed a number of liberal political changes including administrative reform of the country, the proclamation of religious freedom, and the introduction of universal suffrage regardless of class distinctions. He forbade the exploitation of children. He restored and remodeled the Huapultepec Castle above the capital, which also became the ruler’s residence. During his time, a large number of European immigrants came to Mexico, and it also provided refuge to refugees from the American South after the defeat of the Confederacy in the American Civil War. As Charlotte and he had no children, he declared the grandchildren of the first Mexican emperor Agustin de Iturbide as heirs.
The conflicts in Maximilian’s state intensified and the pressure of the renewed and strong United States increased to such an extent that in 1866 the collapse of the empire became inevitable. In that year, namely, Napoleon III withdrew the French army from Mexico. The withdrawal was a consequence of the pressure of the United States, which did not want the interference of European governments in its sphere of interest (in accordance with the Monroe doctrine, which has been talked about again for the past year) and the sudden rise of Prussia under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck. Maximilian refused to abandon Mexico and his supporters, and Carlotta traveled to Europe in a hopeless attempt to secure additional aid from France, Austria, Belgium, and the Pope himself. In February 1867, the emperor retreated to the city of Queretaro Arteaga in front of the advancing Huarist forces, where he successfully resisted the siege for several months, but after betrayal in the ranks of the defense, surrender still followed on May 15, 1867. He was arrested and brought before a military court, which, together with his two military commanders, sentenced him to death by firing squad. Although many European rulers and prominent public figures (including the famous republicans Victor Hugo and Giuseppe Garibaldi) sent Juarez telegrams and letters pleading to spare Maximilian’s life, he refused to pardon the condemned.
On June 19, 1867, Maximilian was shot early in the morning. The scene became an important part of 19th-century popular culture after Manet painted several oil paintings of the motif that are now in museums around the world. Maximilian’s dead body was then publicly displayed in the cathedral in Querétaro, where it remained until 1868, when it was returned to Europe at the request of Franz Joseph, who sent the battleship Novara to Mexico. Maximilian was subsequently buried in the Habsburg Imperial Crypt in Vienna. I wrote a few years ago for “Vreme” about the Mexican sombrero that his devotees left in the crypt in front of his sarcophagus.
Charlotte, under the pressure of everything she experienced, lost her mind and spent the rest of her life in isolation, first in Miramare Castle, and then in Belgium, under the guardianship of her brother, Leopold II, where she died on January 19, 1927.