Things to do in Aquileia, Friuli Venezia Giulia: The Best Museums

The starting point for the history of the Museum is due to the activity of two very different persons: canon Giandomenico Bertoli (1676-1763) and Lepoldo Zuccolo (1761-1833), a painter from Udine. Bertoli collected finds that are still the core of the exhibition; his aim of popularization - according to his time's spirit - is reflected in his work "Le antichita di Aquileia", puglished in Venice in 1739. The seat of his exhibition was his own house, in via Patriarch Popo, and included a remarkable epigraphic collection; after his death and a series of vicissitudes it was bought by Count Antonio Cassis Faraone, who placed it in his "Palazzo" in Monastero, North-East of the centre of Aquileia. Lepoldo Zuccolo is the promoter of the first Public museum of Aquileia, in the ancient Baptistery and Church of the Pagan (both contiguous to the Basilica): it was founded in 1807 and called "Eugeniano" in honour of Eugene de Beauharnais, chief of the Central Government in Milan.

It is a peculiar one: the building, in fact, shows the last restoration in the 15 centuries life of an early Christian suburban basilica, later belonged to the Monastery of Benedictine nuns. The concepts of "museum" and "archaeological site" integrate themselves, so that the visit of the building and its mosaics is completed by the exhibition of Christian funerary inscriptions from different sites, to offer an overall image of Christian Aquileia.