Venzone

Venzone
Country	Italy
region	Friuli Venezia Giulia
Coordinates	46 ° 20 '  N , 13 ° 8'  E Coordinates: 46 ° 20 '0 "  N , 13 ° 8' 0"  E
surface	54 km²
Residents	1,998 (Dec 31, 2019)
Population density	37 inhabitants / km²
Post Code	33010
prefix	0432
ISTAT number	030131
Website	Venzone

Venzone ( Furlanisch Vençon , Slovenian Pušja ves , German Peuscheldorf or Peuschelsdorf ) is an Italian municipality with 1998 inhabitants (as of December 31, 2019) in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region at the entrance to the Canale del Ferro (Iron Valley ), the continuation of the Canal Valley .

Venzone is a member of the I borghi più belli d'Italia association (“The most beautiful places in Italy”).

history

The favorable geographical location at the entrance to the Alpine valleys made Venzone an important border town as early as the time of the Celts (500 BC). The Celts were followed by the Romans , who made Venzone their “statio” along the Via Julia Augusta , which led from Aquileia to the northern markets. Various archaeological finds found during the restoration work on the cathedral confirm the presence of a Roman building on this site.

Circular wall and moat

In the centuries that followed, Marcomanni , Visigoths , Huns , Ostrogoths , Byzantines , Lombards and Carolingians moved through the area. During the reign of the Carolingians (776–952), the first urban unit was created in Venzone. In 923 Venzone was first officially mentioned in the Clause de Abintione . In 1077 Venzone was placed under the Patriarchate of Aquileia . From then on, the control of trade was the most important task of the place. In 1200 the Patriarchate of Aquileia gave the Mels Venzone family as a fief . It is thanks to the Mels family that Venzone became a parish in 1247 and was given the right to hold a weekly market in 1252 .

In 1258 Glizolio di Mels had a double city ​​wall and a deep moat built. In 1336 Venzone came under the rule of the Patriarchate of Aquileia again under Patriarch Bertram of St. Genesius , after the parish feud had been ceded to the Count of Gorizia the year before .

From 1348 Friuli earthquake there are credible reports of serious damage.

Finally, in 1420, Venzone was incorporated into the Republic of Venice . This marked the beginning of the town's economic decline - mainly because trade, which had been the only source of income for centuries, now preferred other routes.

In 1797 Venzone was conquered by Napoleon's French troops ; after the peace of Campo Formio it came under Austrian rule until 1866.

In 1965 it was declared a national monument , now part of the Italian province of Udine .

1976 earthquake

On 6 May 1976, the town was almost completely destroyed when at 20:59 an earthquake 56 seconds long Friuli shook. The tremors reached an intensity of VIII to IX on the twelve-point Mercalli scale and were classified as destructive to devastating. There were 47 fatalities in Venzone. In the first few days after the disaster, a rescue committee organized the recovery of the movable cultural assets. Venzone was badly affected but not wiped out. The complete destruction of the old town, the fortress walls and the cathedral caused an aftershock on September 15, 1976.

The population formed a citizens' committee in 1977 and demanded the complete reconstruction of the village. The responsible ministry was also concerned with a second submission: the municipality's construction office wanted to remove all remains of the building and have Venzone rebuilt with prefabricated elements.

However, the plans of the citizens' committee were adopted. The decision was made not to simply replace the destroyed houses, but rather to put all the rubble back together as it was before the disaster. In order to be able to implement this project, photos of the place were collected in order to be able to identify individual pieces of wall lying around. It was also decided not to add any new facades to the successfully reconstructed areas. Only the places that could not be restored from the rubble were given a facade. Thanks to this decision, visitors to the place can today get an idea of ​​the human excellence that the residents of Venzone performed in the course of the reconstruction of their place. Large parts of the cathedral could also be reconstructed in this way. The bare sections of the wall inside and outside show the losses. In the open city hall palace, a photo documentation reminds of the disaster and the reconstruction.

Attractions

Interior of the cathedral

View towards the organ gallery

• The Cathedral of Saint Andrew the Apostle ( il Duomo di Sant'Andrea Apostolo ). Construction began in 1300. On August 2, 1338, the cathedral was consecrated by the Patriarch of Aquilea Bertrando. The tympanum of the Romanesque main portal in the west shows a crucifixion scene. The original from the 14th century hangs in the church. The interior has a cross-shaped floor plan with a main and two side apses on the cross arms in the east. In the left, northern apse, frescoes from the 14th century can be seen. The consecration of the cathedral, St. Martin and the beggar, St. George saves the princess from the dragon, to the left a mercy seat .

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  Original of the main portal tympanum

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  Fresco, consecration of the cathedral

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  Frescoes with St. George

In the southern apse, between two statues of the apostles, there is a colored pietà made of sandstone (early 14th century ) from German-speaking countries. The wooden crucifix (15th century) comes from a Friulian school. In the Cappella del Gonfalone there is a Lamentation of Christ , made by Giovanpietro da Mure between 1514 and 1521 from limewood. You can see console statues of St. Andreas (late 15th century), St. Mauro (17th century) and the Patriarch Bertrando (1985). A baptismal font and two holy water fonts are works by Bernardino da Bissone (16th century). A modern wooden sculpture was carved in 1996. The organ was built by Gaetano Callido in 1792 .

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  Pietà

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  Lamentation of Christ

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  St. Andrew

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  St. Mauro

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  Baptismal font

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  Wooden sculpture

• Historical mummies can be seen in the Cappella di San Michele . The cause of the mummification is a rapid dehydration by the fungus Hypha bombycina Pers. and the high content of calcium sulfate in the soil, but there is no clear evidence. According to a legend, Napoleon is said to have wished to be buried here on his march through Venzone in order to be preserved for posterity. The frescoes come from a Friulian school.

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  Romanesque chapel of San Michele

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  mummy

City hall palace from the 14th and 15th centuries

• On the main square are the Casa Calderari and the town hall (1390-1410): the ground floor with an open loggia and frescoes by Pomponio Amalteo (15th century) and the upper floor, which can be reached via an external staircase, with a series of double-arched windows . On a turret on the corner is a clock and a sculpture with the lion of San Marco , the symbol of Venice . In the middle of the square is a fountain from 1878 in front of the Palazzo Radiussi with its fake Gothic three-arched windows and the Renaissance portal .

• From the church of St. John the Baptist from the 14th century, today only the facade can be seen. If you follow the main road to the other side of the village, you will reach Porta San Genesio (1309). This is the only city gate that has survived all these years and earthquakes unscathed. This main street leads to the Palazzo Orgnani Martina ( 16th century ).

Regular events

• “Festa della Zucca”, pumpkin festival in October

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  Pumpkin Festival - "Festa della Zucca"

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  Mask at the medieval pumpkin festival

literature

• Furio Bianco, Aldino Bondesan, Paolo Paronuzzi, Michele Zanetti, Adriano Zanferrari: Il Tagliamento. Copyright 2006, University of Udine, Cierre Verlag, Sommacampagna 2006, ISBN 88-8314-372-8 (Italian).
• Roberta Costantini, Fulvio Dell'Agnese, Micol Duca, Antonella Favaro, Monica Nicoli, Alessio Pasian: Friuli-Venezia Giulia. I luoghi dell'arte. Bruno Fachin Editore, Triest 1999, ISBN 88-85289-57-6 , pp. 297-299.
• G. Pilgram , W. Berger, W. Koroschitz, A. Pilgram-Ribitsch: The last valleys. Hiking and stopping off in Friuli. Drava Verlag, Klagenfurt / Celovec 2008, ISBN 978-3-85435-532-8 .

Web links

Commons : Venzone  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Statistiche demografiche ISTAT. Monthly population statistics of the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica , as of December 31 of 2019.
2. ^ I borghi più belli d'Italia. Borghipiubelliditalia.it, accessed August 5, 2017 (Italian). 
3. ↑ emidius.mi.ingv.it
4. ↑ The Mummies of Venzone. In: utdooractive.com . Retrieved March 7, 2019.
5. ↑ Georg Lux, Helmuth Weichselbraun: Forgotten & Displaced - Dark Places in the Alps-Adriatic region . Styria, Vienna / Graz / Klagenfurt 2019, ISBN 978-3-222-13636-8 , pp. 78-85 .
6. ↑ ORF Kärnten - The Pumpkin Festival ( Memento from October 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive )