Udine historical timeline

Udine has been the capital of Friuli for eight hundred years, and Friuli has been fought over for rather longer.

The Patriarchate

From the thirteenth century Udine was the seat of the Patriarchs of Aquileia, prince-bishops who ruled Friuli as an effectively independent state with its own parliament, one of the earliest in Europe.

Venice

In 1420 Venice took Friuli. Udine kept its institutions and acquired a Venetian face: the lion on its column, the loggia on its square, and four centuries of provincial calm.

Austria

After Napoleon and the fall of Venice, Friuli passed to Austria, and Udine joined Italy in 1866 after the third war of independence.

The war capital

Between 1915 and 1917 Udine housed the Italian Supreme Command and was known as the capital of the war. After the collapse at Caporetto, thirty kilometres away, in October 1917 the front fell back past the city and Udine spent a year under Austro-German occupation.

The earthquake

On 6 May 1976 a magnitude 6.5 earthquake killed around 990 people in Friuli and destroyed Gemona and Venzone north of the city. The reconstruction, run locally and committed to rebuilding the historic centres as they were, is still cited internationally as a model.

An autonomous region

In 1963 Friuli Venezia Giulia became one of Italy's five autonomous regions with a special statute, a status granted because of its borders, its linguistic minorities and its strategic position on the edge of the Cold War. Udine and Trieste have argued about how to share it ever since.

Emigration and return

Friuli exported people for a century — to France, Argentina, Australia — and the region's postwar recovery reversed that, which is unusual.