Room 1 - Introduction to the museum
A theatrical performance of Count Francesco di Toppo telling the story of the inauguration of the Archaeological Museum in the Castle, where a part of his extraordinary archaeological collection is displayed.
Civici Musei Udine
Bello saperlo.
Civici Musei Udine
Bello saperlo.
Plan Your VisitChildbirth and Childbearing among the Friulian Peasantry Museums without BordersTraces. Ancient landscape in FriuliMonuments and Public ArchitectureSacred architectureThe architect’s housesThe Udine Regional Exhibition of 1903D’Aronco in TurkeyBiography of Raimondo D'AroncoRaimondo D'Aronco_IntroGino Valle. Profession as Continuous ExperimentationLa conoscenza dei nostri monti (Knowledge of Our Mountains)Come un racconto (As a Story)Mind the Gap 2025Trasformazioni. TriesteAntonio Bardino. Il respiro delle piante (Plants' Breath)MIMMO JODICE. THE ENIGMA OF LIGHTEaster Monday at MuseumsMondo Mizuki, Mondo YokaiCastle Lift scheduled closure Thursday 29 May 2025QUI/ALTROVE. Migrazioni d’oggi in Friuli (HERE/ELSEWHERE: Today's Migrations in Friuli)2 June 2025 - Republic Day - Free Admission in All Civic Museums of Udine
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Archduke Franz Ferdinand's Funeral Carriage
Through detailed archival research, the curators of the Civic Museums of Udine have reconstructed the provenance of the funeral carriage which has belonged to the Municipality of Udine since 1931 and is preserved in the storage of the Ethnographic Museum of Friuli. Most likely it is the same carriage that, on 2 July 1914, transported the body of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Habsburg during the historic homage that the city of Trieste paid to the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in the turmoil that paved the way to the outbreak of the First World War after the Archduke's assassination in Sarajevo. The management of the Civic Museums of Udine hopes that the carriage can soon be restored with the contribution of some patrons.
The Hall of the Parliament of Friuli (Castle of Udine)
PARLIAMENT HALL The Parliament Hall (26 x 13 m) is the heart of Udine Castle. Representatives of the aristocracy, clergy and urban communities of the Patria del Friuli, the feudal state led by the Patriarch of Aquileia until the 1420 invasion by troops of the Venetian Republic, which dominated Udine and much of Friuli until 1797, met here periodically. The origins of the Parliament of Friuli date back to the first half of the 13th century. The assembly took place in various locations in the region and had a consultative function, which it maintained after the arrival of the Venetians. The Parliament continued to meet in Udine until 1805, when it was dissolved by Napoleon. To the power of the Parliament the Venetians countered both their direct and indirect military and political control (through the Lieutenants) and the Contadinanza, i.e. the assembly of representatives of the Friulian peasants, whose House stood between via Vittorio Veneto and via Rauscedo and was demolished and rebuilt in 1931 on Piazzale del Castello. The Hall was built during the rebuilding of the Castle following the devastating earthquake that struck Friuli in 1511. The building was initially designed by the Venetian architect Giovanni Fontana (c.1470 - before 1528). Subsequently, the painter and architect Giovanni da Udine (1487 - 1561), a pupil of Giorgione (c.1478 - 1510) and Raphael (1483 - 1520) famous for the 'grotesque' decoration of vaults and ceilings, took over from Fontana and designed the grand staircase on the north side of the building. Between the second half of the 16th century and the end of the 18th century, the walls of the Hall were decorated by various artists belonging mainly to the Friulian school. The figurative programme of the cycle is the result of a unified design, the creator of which is unknown. Moreover, the fact that the decoration of the Hall lasted for more than a century and a half has resulted in frequent alterations that have prevented it from being fully understood. With a mixture of religious and secular themes, ancient history (of republican and imperial Rome) and modern history (the struggle between Venice and the Ottoman Empire), the decorations are developed on the walls and ceiling of the Hall, dialoguing with each other with a rather strict symmetry. Scholars have speculated that the decorative programme was designed to extol the peace and prosperity enjoyed by Friuli under Venetian rule. On display in the Hall are Ottoman spears and parade pikes, which tradition says were spoils of war from the Christian victory over the Turks at Lepanto (7 October 1571), donated to the Civic Museums of Udine by Giuliano Mauroner (1846-1919). CEILING Inspired by the 'Venetian ceilings' (like those in the Doge's Palace in the lagoon city). Dated between 1566 and 1625. The cycle consists of 21 canvases, 15 of which have an allegorical theme and 6 decorated with coats of arms or inscriptions. The decorative design was once attributed to Giovanni Battista Grassi (c. 1525 - c. 1578), while it is now attributed to another Friulian painter: Francesco Floreani (c. 1515 - c. 1595). The allegorical symbols include Justice, War and Peace, as well as Faith and Religion. In the Justice scene in the central octagon, the hand of the Udine painter Giacomo Secante (1510 - 1585) has been recognised. The ceiling was damaged several times by water infiltration and heavily restored in 1788 by the Friulian Giovanni Battista de Rubeis (1743 - 1819) and in 1818 by the Udine art expert and painter Leopoldo Zuccolo (c.1760 - 1833), a pupil of de Rubeis. UPPER AND LOWER FRIEZE Under the ceiling are friezes painted with the coats of arms of the Lieutenants to whom the Serenissima Republic entrusted the administrative, legal and fiscal control of the Piccola Patria between the Venetian invasion of Friuli in 1420 and the Napoleonic invasion of 1797. The four walls of the Hall are also embellished with a monochrome frieze, in ochre tones, depicting the Triumph over the Turks at Lepanto. The work has been attributed to Francesco Floreani. Its state of preservation, however, does not allow the frieze to be assigned with certainty. It was in poor condition as early as the early 18th century, when the portion on the south wall was repainted. TIEPOLO IN THE PARLIAMENT HALL In his biography (1732) of the Venetian painter Gregorio Lazzarini (1655-1730), Vincenzo da Canal reported that Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696 - 1770), one of the most famous artists of the 18th century, was called upon to restore some frescoes in the Parliament Hall of Udine Castle. Today, one can recognise Tiepolo's intervention on the figures of four pairs of Putti, two on the north wall and two on the south wall of the Hall. The Putti have been dated around 1726 as they show strong stylistic similarities to the figures painted by Tiepolo in the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in Udine Cathedral. In the same period, Tiepolo also made some interventions on the 16th century frieze attributed to Floreani. On the south wall of the Hall, he painted Men in Arms. Tiepolo was not the only Venetian artist to work in the Hall in the 18th century. On the north wall, above the door leading to the Giovanni da Udine staircase, there is in fact a monochrome with a military scene, which scholars assume was painted around 1795 by the painter Giovanni Battista Canal (1745-1825). WEST WALL Divided into historical scenes interspersed with paintings of religious themes and allegorical figures (Revenge and Victory), the wall was initially frescoed by the Friulian painter Pomponio Amalteo (1505 - 1588), son-in-law of Pordenone (c.1483 - 1539). The decoration followed a programme outlined in 1567 by Lieutenant Filippo Bragadin (1509 - 1572), who had taken part in the Venetians' land and sea struggle against the Turkish Empire and the Moorish pirates. In the Battle of Malgariti Amalteo reworked inventions by Raphael and his workshop (such as the famous Battle of Ponte Milvio in the Hall of Constantine) and the style and compositions of the Venetian Jacopo Tintoretto (1518 - 1594). Other scenes, such as Marcus Curtius throwing himself into the abyss and the Death of Cato Uticense, were painted by Giovanni Battista Grassi. The wall was repainted and heavily restored at the end of the 18th century by Giovanni Battista de Rubeis and later by G. U. Valentinis, Giovanni Masutti (1842 - 1904) and Antonio Milanopulo (1842 -1920). EAST WALL The east wall is also divided into scenes interspersed with sacred representations. The Siege of Aquileia by Maximinus the Thracian in 238 A.D. by Pomponius Amalteus evokes the vision of Udine (but even more so of Venice) as the 'new Aquileia'. The other two scenes, commissioned in 1569 by Lieutenant Francesco Venier (1505 - 1581), were painted by Giovanni Battista Grassi. They represent Justice and Wisdom dragging Injustice in chains and The Homeland of Friuli paying homage on its knees, assisted by Venus and Cupid, to Venice enthroned. FOR MORE INFORMATION Giuseppe Bergamini, Il Salone del Parlamento, in Giuseppe Bergamini, Tiziana Ribezzi (ed.), La Galleria d'Arte Antica dei Civici Musei di Udine, Volume 1, Dipinti dal XIV alla metà del XVII secolo (Vicenza; Terra Ferma Edizioni, 2002), p. 188-204.
ENG_Eighteenth-Century Painters between Venice and the Empire
Room 8 Religious commissioning for a borderland In modern times, the regional territory was divided between the mainland dominion of the Republic of Venice, extended over the territories of the Patria del Friuli, and that of the Habsburgs, operating in the County of Gorizia and its appurtenances. The region, spiritually united by the persistence of the Patriarchate of Aquileia, which exerted its influence throughout its extension, was always open to frequent exchanges between the areas, under the banner of a territorial and cultural continuity that represented the wealth of this geographical area over the centuries. In the artistic field, this always translated into a give-and-take relationship between different contexts, often in terms of a balance between the major centres represented by Venice, Vienna or Ljubljana and their respective suburbs. These topics are introduced in the exhibition by a late 17th century view of the city of Udine painted by the painter Alessandro Piazza for the aristocrat Angelo Morosini, procurator of San Marco de ultra, who had the opportunity to intertwine his personal history with that of the Friulian region capital, of which he provides a portrait at the time. And a video that summarises the history of the Patriarchate of Aquileia and its influence on the region. The sensitivity for the colourism of the Venetian school of painting was spread in the Piccola Patria, under the patronage of the patriarchs Dionisio and Daniele Dolfin, who used to invite artists such as Giambattista Tiepolo, Francesco Zugno and Gaspare Diziani to create a number of masterpieces that today represent the artistic heritage of religious buildings and museum institutions in Udine and the whole region. The dissemination of these models was also promoted by printed translations in richly illustrated volumes. The Venetian brand of many paintings for church use was thus able to assert itself also thanks to the requests of parish priests and religious communities in the province of Udine, who often showed a preference for the passionate and popular religiosity interpreted by artists such as Giambattista Piazzetta, rather than the bright lightness of the painting influenced by the Tiepolo. This explains the scant attention paid locally to a painter like Francesco Pavona, born in Udine, who trained in close contact with the Baroque classicism of the Emilia-Bolognese school. He was a restless spirit, who had little presence in Friuli and preferred to move between Venice and the major European capitals. The dissemination of books was promoted in the agronomic sector by figures such as Antonio Zanon who was very open to the debate on agrarian renewal and proposed and procured volumes from Venice for his Udine friends that represented the best of the new European culture circulating in the Veneto region or of what could be purchased on the foreign market. Room 9 Nicola Grassi and the commissioning of the Piccola Patria Among the artists who worked in the first half of the eighteenth century and were born in the Piccola Patria, the carnic Nicola Grassi undoubtedly stands out. He was among the first artists to be valorised in twentieth-century critical literature in relation to lagoon painting. Although initially the painter's Friulian origin was seen as a fundamental starting point in his career, today the Venetian dependence of his expressive language, modulated on the study of figurative sources known and re-elaborated in the lagoon where he was a disciple of the Genoese painter Nicolò Cassana, has been definitively affirmed. Alongside the works on sacred or biblical subjects presented in the exhibition, the intention was to emphasise his portrait production, often considered secondary compared to the works he completed in the church context. In particular, the Portrait of Jacopo Linussio shows how Grassi had developed a modern portrait style, fully in line with what he had observed in the circle of painters revolving around his master's workshop and who, at the beginning of the 18th century, had renewed the language of Venetian painting: these include Rosalba Carriera, Giannantonio Pellegrini, Sebastiano Ricci and Antonio Balestra. Room 10 Giambattista Tiepolo for Udine patrons Dionisio Dolfin, spurred to action by the comparison with the Udine patronage deployed in the cathedral by the Manin family, asked the young Giambattista Tiepolo to paint an important cycle of frescoes for the Patriarchal Palace (now the Diocesan Museum and Tiepolo Galleries). The first contacts between the Patriarch and the painter must probably be traced back to the suggestions of Nicolò Bambini, a painter operating around 1709 for the decorations in the Dolfin Palace of San Pantalon in Venice and the creator of several paintings for the Patriarchal Library in Udine in 1710. After the completion of the work in the Patriarchal Palace, it is common to trace other commissions that would have led Tiepolo to work, already during his first stay in Udine, in the Castle and at the request of the Caiselli family. For the palace of the noble family he would later paint the ceiling canvas depicting the Triumph of Virtue and Nobility over Ignorance, perhaps on the occasion of Francesco Caiselli's election as noble councillor of the city in 1749 or to celebrate the wedding of his brother Bernardino to Pisana Brandolini in September 1743. These works are supplemented by the altarpieces depicting the Guardian Angel (1737) and St. Francis of Sales (1733) for the Philippine Fathers, all of which can be traced back to Daniele Dolfin's commission. Room 11 Noble patronage The Savorgnan commissioning In the 18th century, the Savorgnans, a powerful family that had played a leading role in Friulian affairs, lived in Venice. Their artistic patronage in this period, although limited, is directly exercised in the splendid altarpiece of the Our Lady of the Rosary by Giovanni Antonio Guardi in the church of Belvedere in Aquileia (exhibited in Gorizia, Attems Petzenstein palace) by Francesco Savorgnan or his wife, Lucrezia Morosini († 1750), daughter of a Giovannelli, whose family in Venice had supported the work of the still unknown Guardi. Lucrezia may have suggested the name of Giovanni Antonio Guardi to the parish priest of Pinzano, a Savorgnan feud, for the execution of the altarpiece in the parish church. The tabernacle door of an altar in the parish church of Poffabro in Val Colvera, in the area ofManiago where the Giovannellis had possessions, has been attributed to Francesco Guardi (as well as to Giovanni Antonio). Although the commissioning of the canvas for the side altar of the church of San Paolo in Pasiano in Pordenone was attributed to the Savorgnans, the origin of the request that archpriest Giovanni Francesco Locatelli made to the Venetian artist for the Vision of St. John of Matha, also known as The Holy Trinity Redeemer of Slaves, is still to be verified. The de Pace commissioning The history of the de Pace family develops both in Venetian and Habsburg territory, on both sides of the 'border', in Udine where they are part of the noble order and in the county of Gorizia from the 18th century onwards, with a definite shift of interests. This path that is also reflected in their artistic choices: their residences are adorned with works by painters from the Veneto area such as Francesco Chiarottini, Giovanni Scajario, Alessandro Longhi and Giovanni Visentin, but there is also a portrait of Maria Theresa of Habsburg painted by Heinrich Carl Brandt. The splendid villa 'on the border' in Tapogliano combines Venetian and Central European models. The de Pace's choices were accompanied by an up-to-date cultural awareness, open to the Enlightenment, as in the case of Bernardino (1748-1827) and his wife, the Viennese Teresa Abensperg und Traun. Room 12 The religious commissioning after the suppression of the Patriarchate Placido Costanzi's painting of 1751, in which Pope Benedict XIV hands over the symbols of the two new archbishoprics of Udine and Gorizia to the representatives of Venice and the Empire shaking hands as a sign of peace, represents an epoch-making event: the end of the Patriarchate of Aquileia. This does not mean the end of religious commissioning, which continued to involve important artists from the Veneto area. These include the works by Antonio Marinetti of the Piazzetta school, a prestigious name in the sacred and devotional genre; the works of Pietro Antonio Novelli, one of the most active artists in Friuli and Carnia for the Linussio family in the second half of the 18th century and also engaged in book illustration. These are accompanied by the works of Francesco Fontebasso, who maintained relations in Friuli with rich and wealthy patrons for whom he worked in various churches between Udine and the province. His ties with the Manin family and the Linussio family, for example, are well known. Fontebasso, a disciple of Sebastiano Ricci, studied for some time in Rome at the Academy of San Luca and around the middle of the 18th century was a successful and appreciated painter in Venice on a par with personalities such as Piazzetta and Pittoni. Room 13 The religious commissioning after the suppression of the Patriarchate Although the Patriarchate of Aquileia was suppressed in 1751, its history continued to be remembered. In 1792, Pietro Antonio Novelli - probably based on a design by Francesco Florio - outlined in grisaille panels with gilded backgrounds eight central episodes of its thousand-year history, placed in the capitular sacristy of Udine Cathedral for the canons' reflection. It is an official account of the history of the Patriarchate, reconstructed on the basis of ecclesiastical sources and with an accurate figurative study to make the scenes verisimilar. Two drawings referring to this cycle of frescoes are displayed here together with the letter that the painter addressed to Girolamo de Renaldis in 1799 to describe his artistic biography. Even after the suppression of the Patriarchate, Gaspare Diziani continued to be sought-after by religious patrons in Cividale, Udine and Codroipo, while Francesco Fontebasso executed two altarpieces for the parish church of Brazzano di Cormons in the last period of his activity. He was joined by one of his disciples, Francesco Chiarottini from Cividale. His first production was essentially of a religious nature but, after a series of trips to central Italy and a stay in Rome, he developed decorative elements for stately homes and perspective and scenographic effects in Friuli and Gorizia with derivations from the school of Bibiena and Giovanni Battista Piranesi, gaining widespread acclaim.