Alice - Anin A Gris (con traduzione) THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME FRIULI..
Long before the birth of Christ, the territory that we roughly define today as “Friuli” was known to the Romans as “Carnorum Regio,” the region of the Carni. They were a Celtic tribe that, around 400 B.C., crossed the Alps and settled in the mountainous and foothill areas of Friuli.
Around A.D. 7, the lands were incorporated into the “10th Augustan Region Venetia et Histria” with its capital in Aquileia, which would soon become the fourth largest city in the Italian peninsula by population.
With the disintegration of the Roman Empire, the town of Cividale gained increasing importance as an important commercial center. Cividale, founded perhaps in the mid-2nd century B.C. as a castrum, was later elevated by Julius Caesar to a forum (market), acquiring thus the name “Forum Iulii.” However, the town would be destroyed by the Avars in 610, only to be reborn under the name of Civitas Forumiuliana (therefore Civitas Austriae, from which the current name derives).
The contracted name “Forum Iulii” came to identify ever more extensive territories around the city of Cividale until it eventually identified the entire region. This lexical transformation can be attributed to the Lombards, who ruled these lands from 569 to 776.
Shortly before the year 900, Friuli was also attributed the “title” of Patria. It is known, in fact, that Everardo (or Eberardo), appointed Duke of Friuli in 846, was called “princeps patriae.” Such a title is documented in a diploma from Emperor Heinrich VI dated January 10, 1192, which confirmed Patriarch Goffredo’s possession of the “Ducatus Fori Iulii.” The term “Patria” would then become inextricably linked to Friuli when Patriarch Bertoldo of Andechs defined, on July 6, 1231, “Colloquium Patriae Foriiulii” the assembly convened in representation of the entire region. It would be, along with that of Iceland, the first form of parliament in Europe.
Thus, under the government of the Patriarch of Aquileia, all the lands from the Livenza River to the Timavo River, from the Alps to the Sea, would be known as “Patrie dal Friûl.”
The term Friuli continued to identify these lands even in the subsequent centuries, despite the territory being subject to political divisions.
Even today, the aforementioned lands are identified as:
Friûl (in Friulian), Furlanija (in Slovenian), Friaul (in German), Friuli (in Italian).
