Cividale del Friuli

Cividale del Friuli (Cividât, locally Zividât; Östrich; Čedad) is a town and comune (municipality) in the Regional decentralization entity of Udine, part of the North-Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. The town lies above sea-level in the foothills of the eastern Alps, by rail from the city of Udine and close to the Slovenian border. It is situated on the river Natisone, which forms a picturesque ravine here. Formerly an important regional power, it is today a quiet, small town that attracts tourists thanks to its medieval center. Archaeological findings reveal that the area was already inhabited in Paleolithic and Neolithic times. During the Iron Age the region was settled by Veneti and Celts. Due to the location's strategic position on the northeastern frontier of Roman Italy, in 50 BC, the Romans founded there a castrum, which afterwards was transformed by Julius Caesar into a forum and its name changed into Forum Iulii ("Julius' marketplace"; Fréjus had the same Roman name). Not long afterward, the forum became a municipium and its citizens were inscribed in the Roman tribe Scaptia. After the destruction of Aquileia and Iulium Carnicum (Zuglio) in 452 AD, Forum Iulii became the chief town of the district of Friuli and gave its name to it. In 568 the city was the first major centre occupied by Alboin's Lombard invasion of Italy, then part of the Byzantine Empire. The city was chosen as first capital of the newly formed Lombard Kingdom, then granted by Alboin to his nephew Gisulf as the capital of a Lombard Duchy of Friuli. After the Lombards were defeated by the Franks, (774), following the last Lombard resistance under Hrodgaud of Friuli (776) Forum Julii changed its name to Civitas Austriae, Charlemagne's Italian "City of the East". Under the Carolingian settlement with the Papacy, the patriarchs of Aquileia resided here from 773 to 1031, when they returned to Aquileia, and finally in 1238 removed to Udine. This last change of residence was the origin of the antagonism between Cividale and Udine, which was only terminated by their surrender to Venice in 1419 and 1420 respectively.