Aquileia was founded by the Romans in the year 182 B.C. (1) as a frontier fortress against the Istrian barbarians, and its name is said to be derived from the eagle whose appearance was hailed by the colonists as a good omen. The Via Aemilia, by which the Via Flaminia was continued from Ariminum through Cisalpine Gaul to Mediolanum, was afterwards extended by a branch from Mediolanum through Bixia Verona and Patavium to Aquileia and Tergeste, whence in after-times another road, the Via Egnatia, was carried the whole length of Dalmatia to Dyrrhachium.

In the year 169 B.C. the Aquileians sent envoys to Rome to beg that the number of the colonists should be increased, and by a decree of the Senate fifteen hundred families were enrolled and sent there under the command of triumviri (2). Thus strengthened and enlarged Aquileia rapidly rose to [378] the position of one of the strongest and proudest of Roman towns. Its population numbered 600,000, it was the emporium for the Illyrian trade, it possessed a manufactory of purple dye, and contained a college of artizans which included twenty-five corporations of various handicrafts. The city was a favourite residence of the Empress Livia, who is said to have attributed her long life among other causes to the healthfulness of its now fever-stricken shores, and it was the birthplace of the only child born to Tiberius by his wife Julia (3), the daughter of Augustus.

Though during the security of a long peace her walls had fallen into decay, the city was enabled by the courage of her citizens to resist the attacks of the usurper Maximin in 238; but in 452 Roman Aquileia perished in flames at the hands of Attila and his victorious hordes, and in the time of Justinian in the next century scarcely a vestige remained of what had been 'one of the richest, the most populous, and the strongest of the maritime cities of the Adriatic coast.' The refugees from the ruined cities of Aquileia, Altinum, Concordia and Patavium peopled the remote and almost inaccessible islands of the lagunes that surround the head of the Adriatic from Grado to Venice and Chioggia, and the savage destroyer undesignedly laid 'the foundation of a republic which revived in the feudal state [379] of Europe the art and spirit of commercial industry (4) '.

Once again were the Aquileians, who had after a humble sort revived their ancient city, frightened away from their home by a barbarian irruption. On the Lombard invasion in A.D. 570 Paulinus the archbishop fled to Grado with his relics and treasures, and the Arian Lombards entering Aquileia plundered the church and slew the priests. Paulinus never returned, but died and was buried at Grado, or New Aquileia as it came to be styled while the residence of the fugitive patriarchs.

The patriarch Paulinus was succeeded in 571 by Probinus, and he by Helias, a Greek, who governed the church of Grado or New Aquileia till 586, the title of patriarch being formally transferred to the new 'cathedra.' Helias followed the schismatical or in other words the less numerous party which preferred the ruling of the Council of Chalcedon to that of its successor. The letters of Pope Pelagius II and the threats of the exarch Smaragdus were alike fruitless, and although according to Muratori and other writers the heretical patriarch [381] recanted, and was reconciled to the Roman see before his death, this is denied and disproved by other authorities (7). His successor Severus persevered in the same steps, and is also reckoned by the Church of Rome as a schismatic. After his death in 606 the diocese of Aquileia was divided into two parts. The Lombard counts of Aquileia being then more tolerant of Catholic churchmen than their ancestors had been, the clergy of Aquileia chose John for their patriarch, while the clergy of Grado chose Candidianus, and thus two patriarchal seats arose side by side, that of Aquileia, schismatic, protected by the Lombards, and that of Grado, orthodox, protected by the exarch of Ravenna. The original suffragans of Grado were the bishops of Malamocco (Methamaucus), of whom the series came to an end in 1105, Equilium, which was destroyed by the Hungarians in 903, Venice, Torcello, and Chioggia (Fossae Clodiae) (8).

In the growing strength of Venice, one of her spiritual dependents, the church of Grado found a protector when the exarchate finally failed her. In [382] 933 she was protected by the Venetians against the marquis Winter of Istria, who had stripped her of her possessions at Pola and elsewhere in that province, and in 944 (9) against Lupo, patriarch of Aquileja, who was repulsed by the doge Pietro Candiano III, and bound by a treaty, to which the clergy and nobility of Aquileja put their hands, not to enter the territory of Grado under a penalty of fifty pounds of gold (10). The rival patriarch was ever the most dangerous foe Grado had to fear: he never ceased his pretensions to both spiritual and temporal authority over her, and lost no occasion of asserting his claims by force of arms even in defiance of the papal confirmation of her patriarchal rank in 967.

The great doge Pietro Orseolo II in the year 992 undertook the restoration of Grado from the injuries inflicted by time and the hand of man. He rebuilt or repaired the walls and raised towers for its better defence, and he built a palace (11), whither he loved to retire from the cares of state and enjoy the society of the patriarch Vitale Candiano. Grado was the first halting-place of the great fleet which sailed from Venice under his command on Ascension Day, 998, to encounter and subdue the Narentines, and win for the Republic the sovereignty of the Adriatic. The patriarch received the doge with great ceremony, conducted him to the duomo, and by way of [383] giving a religious sanction to the enterprise, placed in his hand the victorious standard of S. Hermacoras.

The patriarchs of Aquileja had by this time become great secular princes of the empire as well as great ecclesiastical dignitaries. They reached the height of their prosperity in 1027, when the patriarch Poppo obtained from the emperor Conrad II complete exemption from all feudal imposts, which was followed by the liberation of the patriarchal territory from the control of the dukes of Carinthia. The rival patriarchate of Grado at his very door was a constant offence to this powerful prince-bishop, and the political disturbances then agitating Venice gave him the opportunity he desired of humiliating her. In 1026 the doge Ottone Orseolo was an exile in Istria, and his brother Orso, patriarch of Grado, had fled with him. Under pretext of administrating the diocese of the absent patriarch Poppo advanced to Grado with an armed force. The citizens stood on the defensive and prepared to oppose his landing, but he calmed their fears by swearing to abstain from all hostile attempts on the city, and was allowed to enter it without opposition. No sooner, however, was he within the city than his followers began to profane the churches and outrage the ministers. Altars were thrown down, the sacred virgins were violated, the priests slain, the bones of the dead were dug up, the churches and houses were plundered, all the relics that could be found were appropriated and [384] carried off, and the island was left in charge of a garrison of Aquilejan soldiers.

Anxious to prevent ecclesiastical censure, Poppo sent an embassy to Borne to plead with Pope John XIX for the restoration of the ancient rights of the see of Aquileja over the island of Grado, of which he complained it had long been unlawfully deprived. The Pope ignorant of his excesses listened and consented, and a bull was issued to reinstate him in the ancient rights to which he pretended.

The new doge, Pietro Centranico, however, sent a fleet to Grado which drove the Aquilejans away, and he recalled the absent patriarch Orso Orseolo, who in dismay at finding his church sacked and his patriarchal authority extinguished sent to Borne to undeceive the Pope, prove the antiquity and authority of his patriarchal seat, and expose the sacrilege of Poppo.

The Pope learned that he had been duped; to have successfully deceived infallibility was scandalous, and it was now Poppo's turn to incur the denunciation of the Church. A fresh bull was fulminated by which the former one was reversed; Poppo was condemned, and it was decreed that no one for ever should presume to disturb Orso and his successors in their functions or possessions as patriarchs of Grado (12).

The patriarch of Grado was thus established securely in his dignity and emoluments, but the town of Grado never recovered the havoc of Poppo's double invasion; and from that time it steadily declined till it became what we now see it, a mere village on a desolate island, with nothing but the ancient basilica to mark its former ecclesiastical importance as the seat of the Venetian primate.

Patriarch Domenico Marengo in 1045 desired to quit Grado on account of its miserable condition; the next Patriarch Dom° Cervoni was reduced to such straits that Gregory VII wrote to beg the doge to supply his needs; and the succeeding patriarchs, Giov. Gradenigo (1105-1131) and Enrico Dandolo (1131-1186), actually moved their residence to Venice. Henceforward the patriarch was a stranger to his titular city; he had a palace at Venice, and took precedence as the first citizen of the Republic; his authority was recognised over all the islands of the Lagunes, while that of Aquileja [387] prevailed over the churches of Friuli and Istria (14); and in 1145 the patriarchal rule of Grado was extended over the new metropolitan see of Zara with its suffragan bishoprics (15). This revolution gave great dissatisfaction to the Zaratini, and was one cause of their first revolt against the Venetian government (16). In the year 1450 the seat of the patriarchate was formally transferred from Grado to Venice, where it has survived to the present day.

The rival and older patriarchate of Aquileja has not been so fortunate; its secular greatness involved it in constant struggles with its neighbours, and the final fall of its temporal power dragged down with it the spiritual office in one common ruin.

In 1238 the seat of the patriarchate was transferred by Berthold von Andeechs from Aquileja to Udine, so that here too as at Grado the titular cathedral city was no longer the episcopal residence. It was in the time of this patriarch that the marquisate of Istria was finally attached to the patriarchate, which thus acquired sovereign rights over the western Litorale and a large part of Istria. The [388] spiritual dignity of the patriarchal see was as jealously defended as its secular possessions. In 1245 at the Council of Lyons the Aquilejan patriarch claimed an equal throne with the patiiarchs of Antioch and Constantinople who attended with the Latin emperor Baldwin II, and though on the remonstrance of the two Eastern prelates the seat of this modern pretender was thrown down, the Pope afterwards allowed it to be re-erected.

The gradual transference of the Istrian dominion to Venice and Austria has been traced in the foregoing sketch of Istrian history. The patriarchal possessions in Friuli were swallowed up by the neighbouring poAvers at a later date. The territory of Udine Avas annexed by Venice in 1420, the patriarchal city of Aquileja alone being left to the Prince-bishop, and in 1544 the remainder of his temporal sovereignty AAras finally taken from him by Austria. The patriarch seems to have employed the spiritual power which remained to him in fomenting discord between his two despoilers, and as his metropolitan jurisdiction extended on both sides of the frontier he had considerable opportunities for mischief. In order to stop this source of dispute an agreement was arrived at between the republic and the empress Maria Theresa in the year 1751, by which the patriarchate was finally extinguished. As a preliminary step a vicar apostolic was appointed in 1750 for that part of the patriarchal diocese which was situated within the Austrian territory, and the administration of the estates of the [389] chapter of Aquileja was transferred to the political authority. In the next year 1751 the patriarchate itself was finally suppressed, and in its stead were created two archbishoprics at Udine and Gorizia, the former with jurisdiction over the Venetian part of the old diocese including Venetian Istria, and the latter over the Austrian part including the sees of Trieste Pedena Trento and also that of Como in Lombardy. A medal was struck to commemorate the event, with the following inscription: —

In 1818 the see of Udine was reduced to a bishopric, and the sees of Capodistria, Cittanova, Parenzo, and Pola, which had been made suffragan to it in 1751, were transferred again to the metropolitan of Venice, the successor of the patriarchs of Grado and ancient metropolitans of Istria.

1. The colonies of Mutina and Parma were established in the same year, Liv. xxxix. c. 55.
2. Liv. xliii. c. i 7.
3. Suetonius, Vit. Tiberii, c. 7. Pliny mentions Aquileia, though it is difficult to understand how he makes it out to be twelve miles from the sen, Plin. iii. 18.
4. The story of the siege and capture of Aquileia is known to every reader of Gibbon. Vid. Decl. and Fall, ch. xxxv. Dandolo, 1. v. c. 1, pars xii., says that Grado was founded at this time by fugitive nobles from Aquileia who in litore castrum spectabile construxerunt. It had, however, no doubt been an outpost of Aquileia in Roman times.
5. Padre de Rubeis, Dissertazione sulla scisma d' Aquileia, Sec, quoted by Bertoli.
6. The details of this dispute will be found in Gibbon and Mosheim.
7. Bertoli, Antichità di Aquileja, quotes Muratori, who in his list of patriarchs places the death of Helias in 582.
8. Eitelberger, Mittelalterliche Denkmale, &c. The Venetian writers claim higher antiquity for the patriarchate of Grado, on the ground that the cathedra was transferred from Old to New Aquileja, and that consequently the second patriarchate of Old Aquileja was a new creation. The Abbot Joachim in his book on Ezekiel, according to Dandolo, finds prototypes of these two patriarchates in Zara and Phares, the twin sons of Judah, of whom the elder signified prophetically the Church of Grado, and the younger that of Aquileja. Dandolo, 1. vi. c. 1, pars xvii.
9. Or 942.(?}.
10. Vol. Misc. relating to Graclo in Bibl. Marciana, Venice, No. 258, to which I am largely indebted for the following history.
11. Dandolo, 1. ix. c. r, pars iv.
12. Cod. MS. Trevisan, Decision of Pope John XIX. The pope learns that Poppo 'quicquid in ecclesia inventum est unca manu depraedatum est, duorum monasteriorum sanctimoniales stupratae ac violatae a suis sunt, neque monachis pepercit. Quin etiain defunctorum corpora quietem desiderantia a propriis tumulis auferens ad civitatem suam inhonorata transtulit, reliqua minus tamen quam desiderabat similiter secum devexit, altaria confregit, thesauros abstulit...' Worst of all he fraudulently claimed aucient rights over Grado. The former bull is revoked, and it is enacted that no one 'praedictum Ursonem patriarcham ac successores ejus de praedicto patriarchatu Gradensi sive de rebus ac possessionibus ejus iuquietare aut molestare praesumat,' &c. Vol. Misc. Bibl. Marc. 258.
13. 'Sed antequam a nobis de tanto eververato(?) ausu divino judicio sine confessione et viatico ab hac luce subtractus est.' Decret. Sinod. of Benedict IX.

14. The sees suffragan to Aquileja in 1132 were sixteen; Pola, Trieste, Parenzo, Pedena, Cittanova, Concordia, Treviso, Ceneda, Belluno, Feltre, Padua, Vicenza, Trient, Mantua, Verona, Como. Gams, Ser. Episc.

15. 'Tandem Lampridius iste Jadrensis episcopus effectus est. Iste primus sub patriarca Gradensi pallium obtinuit ab Anastasio Papa anno Domini MCXLV.' Thorn. Archid. c. xx.
16. See vol. i. p. 47-50.
17. Scussa, Storia Cronografica di Trieste. Continued by Kandler, ed. Cameroni, Trieste, 1863. As the last twenty patriarchs from 1465-1751 were all Venetians of the five families Barbò (1), Barbarò (4), Donati (1), Grirnani (7), Giustiniani (1), Gradenigo (3), and Dolfin (3), the grievance may be assumed to have been felt principally by the Austrians.

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