THE DISTANT prospect of the campanile across the coastal plain does little to prepare the visitor for great basilica of Aquileia. The Roman city, founded in 181 BC, became an important Christian centre and the seat of a bishopric in the early fourth century, but was sacked by Attila in 452. It was only in the early ninth century that a grant from Charlemagne led to the construction of a new church on the site of the one founded soon after 313 by Bishop Teodoro, and the present basilica was constructed during the long patriarchate of Popone (1019–42). His successors were to rule much of the former duchy of the Friuli until their temporal powers passed to Venice in 1420. In 1509 Aquileia itself, with part of the Friuli, was returned to imperial rule; except during the Napoleonic occupation it remained under Austrian control until 1915.
To the west of the basilica, approached from the portico through the so-called Chiesa dei Pagani, is the octagonal Baptistery, much restored. The structure of the church is due to Popone, but as the positions of the bases of the columns of the arcades flanking the nave show, the floor level was originally roughly a metre higher, covering the remarkable mosaic pavement of Teodoro’s time. While the mosaic is the glory of the church, it also boasts contributions from its Venetian rulers: the elaborate tribune in the raised presbytery and the altar of the Sacrament to the right, both by the Ticinese carver Bernardino da Bissone, and, in the right transept, an admirably lucid altarpiece of 1503 by the Friulian painter Pellegrino da San Daniele. The ninth-century crypt under the presbytery, built for Patriarch Maxentius, is notable for its relatively well-preserved early Trecento frescoes of scenes from the life of Saint Mark and the Passion of Christ. A door on the left of the church leads to the Cripta degli Scavi, a substantial section of Teodoro’s shrine that has been excavated round the base of the campanile. Fragmentary walls suggest the scale of the complex, and there are more mosaics, including representations of fruit, chickens and, more unusually, snails. The campanile itself was apparently built partly of spoil from the Roman amphitheatre. What survives of the Roman town has indeed been severely robbed, and is perhaps principally of interest to the archaeologist, although the finds in both the archaeological and Christian museums are of some importance.
Aquileia, Basilica: Cripta dei Scavi, mosaic floor, snails (detail).
Aquileia and Grado are only eleven kilometres apart. The fort on what was then the island of Grado was originally an outpost of its greater neighbour and with the collapse of Roman rule was much more easily defended. By the seventh century Grado had been drawn into the orbit of Venice, and even now visitors to the old town sense that they are in the territory of La Serenissima. The centre of the town round the port is relatively unscathed. There are three early churches, of which the most distinguished is the basilica of Sant’Euphemia, built under Elia, who was Patriarch of Aquileia in 571–87, and consecrated in 579. The fine original mosaic pavement survives; so does the gilded silver paliotto on the high altar that was sent from Venice in 1372. But the basilica is perhaps most memorable for the harmony of its parts. Beside it is a yet earlier, if restored, octagonal Baptistery. The charm of Grado is that its Venetian core has not been degraded by the modern coastal resort that has grown up round it.