Friuli’s historic capital, it offers Folkest one of its best settings: the patriarchs’ castle, which houses inside the hall of the Friulian Parliament, probably the earliest evidence of European democratic life, decorated with one of Tiepolo’s most famous paintings. Also standing on the hill are: the church of Santa Maria (7th century) and the Casa della Contadinanza, a 1931 reconstruction of a 15th-century building where Friulian peasants gathered.
The Piazza San Giacomo or Piazza delle Erbe, now Piazza Giacomo Matteotti, the center of the market but also of town life in recent centuries, has undergone careful restoration, both of the paving and of the beautiful fountain, the work of Giovanni da Udine. Also of extreme artistic interest is Udine’s entire Tiepolesco cycle: from the patriarchal palace to the Purità chapel.
The beautiful Piazza Libertà, with the 15th-century Loggia del Lionello and the 16th-century Loggia di San Giovanni, with its clock tower by Giovanni da Udine, is considered among the most Venetian in Italy after St. Mark’s in Venice.
The cathedral of Santa Maria Annunziata, residence of the last patriarchs of Aquileia, was begun in 1236 on an earlier sacred building, decorated with altarpieces and frescoes by Giovan Battista Tiepolo.
