Cividale del Friuli
Discover Cividale del Friuli
A concise introduction to Cividale del Friuli, its geography, history and culture.
Introduction
Cividale del Friuli stands at about 135 metres where the Natisone leaves the hills, with roughly eleven thousand inhabitants, twenty minutes east of Udine.
The Ponte del Diavolo crosses the river gorge on a central pier of natural rock and is the image of the town.
The Tempietto Longobardo, properly the Oratory of Santa Maria in Valle, is a small eighth-century room with a stucco arch carrying six female figures — the finest surviving Lombard sculpture anywhere and part of a UNESCO World Heritage listing since 2011.
In the Christian Museum beside the duomo are the Altar of Duke Ratchis and the Baptistery of Callixtus, both eighth-century and both carved with a directness that no later century repeats.
The National Archaeological Museum holds the grave goods of the Lombard cemeteries found around the town.
The Ipogeo Celtico, a chamber cut into the rock below street level, remains unexplained.