Theatro delle Citta d'Italia

1629

de Beer Itb 1629 B

[Padua]: Francesco Bertelli

The region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia is sparsely populated with only 1.2 million inhabitants, approximately 100,000 of whom now live in the city of Udine. Legend has it that Attila the Hun (d. 453) encouraged his soldiers to build a hill in the centre of Udine by transporting soil there in their helmets. The marauding Huns held the nearby town of Aquileia (40 kilometres away) under siege and Attila wanted a vantage point in this flat land from which to see the town burning. Could this be the hill that appears in the middle of this 1629 engraving? From 1420 to 1797 Udine was under the control of the Republic of Venice but in 1866 joined the Kingdom of Italy as part of the new unified nation created by the Risorgimento.