Aquileia, formerly a city of the Roman Empire and a patriarchate of the Roman Catholic Church; it is now a village in the Friuli–Venezia Giulia region in northeastern Italy, on the Natisone River near the Adriatic coast, northwest of Trieste.
Founded as a Roman colony in 181 bc to prevent barbarian incursions, Aquileia’s position at the junction of the Via Postumia with roads north and east to the Roman provinces of Illyria, Pannonia, and Noricum encouraged its rapid growth as a commercial as well as military centre. By the 4th century it had become capital of the administrative regions of Venetia and Istria. Although the city had been unsuccessfully besieged by the Marcomanni and the Quadi (Germanic tribes) in 167, it fell to the Huns and was sacked in 452. The Lombards’ invasion of Italy in 568 and their conquest of the Venetian mainland marked the final eclipse of Aquileia’s political and economic importance; it became part of the Lombard duchy of Friuli.
An episcopal see (according to tradition, founded by St. Mark) from about the middle of the 3rd century, Aquileia became in the 5th century the metropolitan see for Venetia and Istria as well as for the outlying region north and east. After the condemnation in 554 by Pope Vigilius of the Three Chapters (heretical writings based on the emperor Justinian’s ecclesiastical policies), Aquileia seceded from Rome, its bishop Macedonius adopting the title of patriarch in defiance of the Pope. The see remained schismatic when the patriarch Paolino I fled to Grado (the earlier foreport of Aquileia) after the Lombard invasion. When Candianus, who was loyal to Rome, was elected metropolitan at Grado in 607, the suffragan bishops of the Lombard mainland elected an abbot, John, at Aquileia, and he continued the schismatic policy of his predecessors.
The schism was finally ended under the pontificate of Sergius I (687–701) at a council at Pavia. Henceforth, Aquileia and Grado were recognized as separate sees and patriarchates. The residence of the patriarch of Aquileia had been transferred to Cormons in 627 for reasons of safety and to Cividale in 730. Aquileia’s ecclesiastical importance was much enhanced by the mission of Bishop Paolino II (died 802) to the Avars and Slovenes, and in the 11th century Aquileia acquired extensive political privileges and feudal dominions, largely from the German kings. Bishop Poppone, who built Aquileia’s Basilica Teodoriana (1021–31), was granted the right to coin money, and the see was invested with the county of Friuli and the marches (frontier territories) of Carniola (1077) and Istria (1209).
It remained a feudal principality until the conquest of Friuli by Venice in 1419–20. By the treaty of 1445, the patriarch finally acquiesced in the Venetian conquest and retained only Aquileia itself, San Vito, and San Daniele del Friuli. From the 15th century, the patriarchs were always Venetians. In 1751 Pope Benedict XIV suppressed the patriarchate and created the archbishoprics of Udine and Gorizia in its place. Aquileia, with its cathedral, was placed under papal jurisdiction. Pop. (2006 est.) mun., 3,472.