Cividale del Friuli was founded in Roman times by Julius Caesar with the name Forum Iulii, from which the entire region later took its name. It became the capital of the Lombard Duchy of Friuli, the Friulian border district, and the temporal capital of the Patriarchate of Aquileia.
In the Lombard period, between the 6th and 8th centuries, it was called Civitas Fori Iulii. In the 10th century, being located in the eastern part of Lothair’s kingdom, it began to be called Civitas Austriae. Abbreviating the official name, the population called it Civitate(m), from which the local names Cividât, Zividât, Sividât, and later, around the 15th century, Cividal d’Austria, and finally, only after the war between Venice and the League of Cambrai, the current name of Cividale del Friuli began to be used.
Among the monuments of interest are the Devil’s Bridge with its picturesque view of the Natisone River, the Christian Museum, adjacent to the cathedral from which it can be accessed, hosting the Baptistery of Callisto (8th century) and the Altar of Rachtis (around 730-740), masterpieces of Lombard sculpture, and finally, the Celtic Hypogeum, an underground carved space with various interpretations of its origin and function, hypothesized as a funerary function and later as a prison in Roman and Lombard times.
