FRIULI. - Name derived from Forum Iulii (later Patria del F.), by which is designated the territory that extends to the Isonzo and the Timavo to the east, to the course of the Livenza to the west, to the Adriatic Sea and to the Carnic Alps to the south and to the north. There, for the most part, a particular Ladin dialect is spoken, quite different from the dialects of the rest of the Veneto; while along the left bank of the Livenza the populations have adopted a dialect similar to that of Treviso, in some mountain villages inhabited by ancient Carinthian immigrants a German dialect continues to be spoken, while in the upper valleys of the Torre and in the Natisone as in that of the Isonzo, inhabited until the 7th century by Slavic populations, a Slovene dialect is spoken.
The territory, divided between the two bishoprics of Aquileia (patriarchate) and of Concordia until 1731, from then on, Concordia remaining, constituted the archbishopric of Udine and in part that of Gorizia.
The great Lombard duchy of F., established by Alboin in 568 as a bulwark against Avar-Slavic invasions, became a march under the Carolingians; within it the county of F. was carved out within the boundaries indicated above and under the Saxon-Franconian emperors constituted the feudal State of the patriarch with ample privileges. The major vassals were the bishop of Concordia and the count of Gorizia as advocate of the patriarch, the abbot of Sesto, then Chapters and prelates and lay lords; alongside them there later arose the free communities (Aquileia, Udine, Cividale, etc.); all of them, distinguished into the three estates: nobility, clergy and communities, had a voice in the Friulian Parliament which from the 13th century tempered the authority of the patriarch as feudal lord. When in 1420 the F. entered into the mainland States of the Republic of Venice, the ancient ordinances continued to have force, although the Parliament was deprived of all political power, until the end of the 18th century. From then on the F. followed the political and administrative fortunes of the rest of the Veneto, mutilated in its eastern boundaries until the end of the war of 1914-18.
Bibliography4 works
Pio Paschini