What is Aquileia known for?

The 760-square-meter paleochristian pavement under the basilica, the largest in the Western world, dated to the fourth century. Population peaked near 100,000 in the second century AD; most of the imperial city remains unexcavated beneath fields and the modern village. Seat of the Patriarchate of Aquileia from the sixth century until the Vatican suppressed it in 1751, governing a vast Adriatic and Alpine diocese.

Aquileia is a comune in the province of Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy, about 42 kilometers from Udine.

Friuli-Venezia Giulia · Udine

Aquileia

A village of 3,128 on a Roman capital of 100,000, where the largest paleochristian mosaic floor in the West runs under a Romanesque basilica.

42 km / 26 mi

Nearest hub (Udine)

3,128

Population

May–Sep

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Why come

Aquileia sits at five meters above sea level on the Friuli plain, ten kilometers inland from the Adriatic at the head of the Grado lagoon. Rome founded it as a military colony in 181 BC. By the second century AD it held close to 100,000 people, was the capital of Augustus's Regio X, and ranked among the nine great cities of the empire. Attila's Huns sacked it in 452, the population scattered to the lagoon islands, and the surface town never recovered. The Roman city below is largely unexcavated, which makes Aquileia, in UNESCO's words, the most complete example of an Early Roman city in the Mediterranean. Above it, Patriarch Poppo rebuilt the basilica in 1031 over a fourth-century church. Its floor is the largest paleochristian mosaic in the Western world, 760 square meters of fish, birds, jonah and the whale, uncovered by archaeologists in 1909. The 73-meter campanile uses stone quarried from the Roman amphitheater. The Patriarchate of Aquileia survived until 1751.

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Gallery

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Known for

Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta
Patriarch Poppo's eleventh-century basilica over a fourth-century church, with a 760-square-meter paleochristian mosaic floor uncovered in 1909.
Campanile di Poppo
Free-standing 73-meter bell tower built in the eleventh century with stone quarried from the Roman amphitheater, raised again in the fourteenth.
Foro Romano
Excavated section of the Roman forum along the Via Sacra, with the bases of columns and reused capitals from the second century AD.
Museo Archeologico Nazionale
Glass, amber, mosaics, gemstones, and the largest collection of Roman portrait busts in northern Italy, from the imperial city below.
Porto Fluviale
Stone quays of the Roman river port on the Natissa, the harbor that linked Aquileia to the Adriatic and to the Danube trade upriver.
Sepolcreto Romano
Stretch of the Via Annia lined with five family tombs from the first and second centuries, the most complete Roman funerary street in the region.

When to visit

Best months · May–Sep

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

May through September is the working season for Aquileia. The basilica is open daily, the archaeological park stays light until late, and the lagoon at Grado five kilometers south is swimmable. July and August are hot and humid on the plain, often pushing above thirty-two degrees, and the mosaic floor is the coolest room in town. September brings the Aquileia Film Festival, four nights of archaeological documentaries projected onto Piazza Capitolo against the basilica wall. November through March is quiet and damp, the lagoon mist reaches inland, and several restaurants close. The basilica stays open year-round and is at its strangest in winter fog.