_an insider’s point of view, a contemporary guide to the best places of Aquileia.
_six slow itineraries through museums, archaeological areas and good food in a relaxed mood.
The incentro guides were conceived for tourists enamoured of the finer sides of Italy, consisting in the country’s beautiful mixture of art/culture/nature. Written by experts, these guides are meant to recount the best of a country like Italy, naturally apt to catch the visitors’ eyes. The best places – and the Top 5 – where tourists can enjoy a good time and a good life, while getting to know Italian cities from the inside.
Elena Commessatti was born in Udine. Writer and literary journalist, she also works as a screenwriter and presenter for RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana (the national public broadcasting company of Italy). She has often dealt with the biographies of “forgotten” individuals (such as inventor Arturo Malignani) and of “invisible” places, which were adapted and broadcasted on the Italian radio. After being awarded a master’s degree in Storytelling Techniques at the Scuola Holden – School of writing in Turin, she worked for a few years in editorial offices and press offices in Milan. As an author, she has a predilection for seriality, as proven by the noir saga The books of Agata Est (dedicated to the real story of the serial killer known as the “Monster of Udine”), and by her format of slow tourist itineraries-guides Udine “genius loci”. For Odòs publishing house she works both as the editorial director of the incentro guides series (whose format she invented), and as an author. A few years after Udine: A Guide, she has now chosen to return to tell the tale of the beautiful city of Aquileia. She has been a contributor to the cultural pages of the “Messaggero Veneto’’ newspaper since 1995. Since 2007 she has been the narrative voice of Moroso furniture design company.
Aquileia’s must-see attractions
Aquileia’s must-see attractions
1. Aquileia is worth a trip to Italy. Being a UNESCO site with more than two thousand two hundred years of history, this unique city will take you on an unforgettable journey through the past, especially to the Roman age. Follow this tip: make your way to the end of via XXIV Maggio, then enter the ancient burial ground (known as Sepolcreto), maybe at night, and enjoy the curious atmosphere of this imperial Spoon River: take a walk under the stars with a glass of wine (why not?) while admiring the family tombs and the adjacent vineyards and watercourse (the so-called roggia dei mulini, or “canal of the watermills”).
2. You must visit the MAN, Museo Archeologico Nazionale (National Archaeological Museum). All the displayed artefacts were found in the immediate surroundings. There is no similar museum in Italy. We dare you to prove the opposite. There isn’t. We, at incentro guides, are particularly fond of the new spaces dedicated to gems, cameos and glassworks, and of the amber jewellery showcases. Not to be missed is the last room on the ground floor, devoted to funerary objects.
3. A recommendation for visitors of every kind: take a tour of the museum during its Open Days. You will have the chance to meet local archaeologists, who will be happy to narrate their findings. In late July and early August you might also attend the outdoor Archaeological Film Festival, which usually takes place in the suggestive frame of piazza Capitolo; you won’t regret it.
4. A tour of Aquileia’s Basilica certainly is a great experience for pilgrims of any sort, agnostics and atheists alike. Entering from the Southern Hall, you will see the largest mosaic in the western world (or at least the best preserved). You might dare your travelling companions to figure out the meaning of its complex Early Christian symbols. You could also further puzzle your wits in interpreting the mosaics displayed in the so-called Crypt of the Excavations, inside the Northern Hall. Let’s see, as an example: why is there a tree over a lobster (or crayfish) whose antennae are touching a ray’s tail?
5. Be sure to take a fascinating archaeological walk along the 1930s Via Sacra (or “Sacred Way”), a modern trail connecting the ancient riveort to the Basilica area; we recommend this itinerary especially during summer days, because of the refreshing shade provided by the many cypressesalongside the trail. After imagining the past magnificence of the port’s remnants, you will keep precious memories of
Aquileia as a “city on water”. You might also follow the trail backwards, from the rear of the Basilica to via Gemina; go past the arch and proceed towards the locality known as Monastero. There you will find another location we highly recommend, as museum lovers: the Museo Paleocristiano (Early Christian Museum). Here, reading the epigraphs inscribed on the graves of early believers, you will truly understand the international character of ancient Aquileia, which maintained its cosmopolitan status even during the Roman empire’s conversion to the new Christian religion.
TOP5
Glasswork
1. Pyx with golden ribbons. It is a cylindrical container with an interlocking lid, provided with a raised central grip made with the “gold ribbon” technique by casting and shaping on a matrix, and cold finishing with a grindstone. The small multicoloured box proves the expertise achieved by Aquileia’s glassworkers as early as the 1st century AD. Found in 1911 in a woman’s tomb north-east of the city, this elegant box was intended to contain cosmetics and beauty creams. The highly refined technique employed in its making involved the combination of glass rods of different colours and gold leaf ribbons, which brighten with precious flashes the blue and green parts.
2. Variously-shaped containers for ointments. Rich Roman ladies paid attention to body care and made extensive use of perfumes and ointments, which they kept in small glass bottles. Some of the bottles found in Aquileia have animal shapes, such as wild boars and crocodiles. Some were in the shape of a bird: to pour the perfume you had to break its tail. There is also plenty of containers in the shape of a shell (a symbol associated with Venus and beauty) or of a date, which probably contained a perfumed ointment made from this very fruit and from one of the towns on the Phoenician coast. There are also recipients for balsams used in funerary contexts (they contained balms and ointments useful for sprinkling the body before incineration, in order to mitigate the exhalations).
3. Tableware, to enrich the domus. Glass was considered a luxury product, originally used mainly to imitate the expensive metal containers used in banquets. During the imperial age this material became more common; there was a spread of vases with a natural green-blue colour, characterised by an even greater variety of shapes: glasses, bottles with a globular or cylindrical body, decorated cups, jugs, canthari, ollas, Hydriae, plates.
4. Ollas. Despite being amost unknown in Greece, in the East and in Egypt, the ollas are one of the most common glass findings in the Roman provinces of Europe. Initially they were used only as domestic containers. The specimens here displayed were found in the necropolis: therefore, they were used as urns and connected to the cremation rite.
5. Snail-shaped rhyton in green, transparent glass. Containers of this type, such as the guttus, were characterised by a wide upper opening and a hole through a lower conical narrowing from which the liquid flowed; they were used to pour or drink liquids in particular contexts (libations, ceremonies).
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