THERE are few places in Italy where the post-Roman world seems more palpable than Cividale, the successor of the frontier town of Forum Julii on the right bank of the river Natisone that took the name of its founder, Caesar. Here as everywhere else in Italy the death throes of the western empire brought chaos. But in 568 the Lungobards, or Lombards, who had occupied Pannonia to the east for two generations, migrated though the mountains and set out to conquer much of the peninsula, choosing Cividale as the capital of a duchy that controlled much of the Friuli. Lungobard rule ended with the defeat of the wonderfully named Rotgaud in 776. The duchy passed to Charlemagne and his successors, of whom Lothar founded a school at Cividale in 825; in 1077 Henry IV granted the Friuli to the patriarchs of Aquileia. They effectively held Cividale until 1419, when it fell to Venice.
The medieval city lies within the line of the Roman walls. The most dramatic approach is from the south, over the Ponte del Diavolo across the deep gorge of the Natisone. The road rises steeply to the L-shaped Piazza del Duomo. The front of the Duomo is on the right, a restrained Renaissance replacement of its predecessor destroyed in an earthquake of 1448, with, above the high altar, the pala of Patriarch Pellegrino II (ruled 1195–1204), who is shown before the Madonna and Child. To the right of the Duomo is the Museo Cristiano, with two remarkable survivals of the eighth century, the octagonal Baptistery of Patriarch Callisto (737–56) and the altar of Duke Ratchis (734–7), carved with vigorous reliefs of Christ in Majesty, the Visitation and the Adoration of the Kings in an idiosyncratic linear style. With the exception of Pordenone’s Noli me Tangere, the pictures are of marginal interest.
The piazza beyond the Duomo is dominated on the east by Palladio’s Palazzo dei Provveditori Veneti. This now houses a substantial archaeological collection. Opposite the lateral façade of the Duomo is the Palazzo de Nordis, with remarkable medieval works of art including an enamel associated with one of the Lusignan kings of Jerusalem and the veil of the Beata Benvenuta Boiani; embroidered in white on a white ground with the Crucifixion and representations of Saint Ursula and her virgins, this remarkable survival is of about 1300.
Return towards the river and take the turn to the left before the bridge. Ask in the bar at the corner for the keys to the ‘Celtic Hypogeum’ just up the road on the right; cut from the rock, this has now been identified as a place of purification for Cividale’s Jewish community in the medieval period. The narrow street climbs towards the lane from which the Lungobard tempietto is now entered through a later convent. The Lungobards were often content to make do with the buildings of their Roman and Byzantine predecessors, and although relatively modest in scale the tempietto is perhaps the most distinguished of their monuments. The interior is remarkable above all for the elongated figures of female saints in stucco high on the original entrance wall, which are now said to be of about 760. Pause outside and follow the path to the cliff edge, to look out across the bend of the river to the picturesque Borgo di Brussana towards the encroaching mountains.
Museo Cristiano: Altar of Ratchis, Visitation, 734–7.