BORGOFRANCO. – Also called Villanova or Villafranca, it is a medieval settlement enclosed by walls and moats, generally square or rectangular in plan, with two or four gates, founded for political purposes and situated strategically in order to dominate lines of communication, defend territories more easily subject to invasion, and serve as forward positions for the easier conquest of new lands. The Republic of Vercelli alone founded twenty-two of them in a single century.
From an economic standpoint, the b. was also a means of populating and bringing many uncultivated areas under cultivation. The peasants who settled in the borough were obliged to perform military service, but enjoyed the rights of citizens; they were exempt from certain taxes for a specified number of years and, as we learn from the Vercelli franchises, received a house and a farm in emphyteusis (payment of the rent for which was suspended in wartime); they had the right to pasture and gather firewood on common lands, could receive other lands in emphyteusis from ecclesiastical and charitable institutions, and enjoyed a weekly market. It must therefore not be forgotten that the b. contributed to a profound agricultural transformation and to the growth and geographical redistribution of the population.
The rural character of the Italian b. is what distinguishes it from the German « Freiburg » and the English « liber burgus », which instead attained the importance of true cities.
In eastern Venetia, the Patriarch of Aquileia, who exercised full feudal dominion over Friuli, organized in a similar manner the castles that he held under his immediate lordship and did not wish to see fall into the hands of his vassals. He entrusted them to his gastaldi or captains, placing the Church’s ministeriales under their authority; or he granted the inhabitants fiefs of residence, obliging them to maintain a permanent presence there, with the duty of defence, and providing them with a house, lands, and a market; or he supplied them by other means. Gradually, these people came to participate in the government of the castle, and their representatives gained a voice in the Parliament of the Patria. In the thirteenth century, this organization was fully developed. Thus the communities of Cividale, Udine, Gemona, Tolmezzo, San Daniele, Sacile, and other smaller ones came into being with free institutions.