Tolmezzo

Mediaeval in origin, although entirely rebuilt in the eighteenth century, the Church of Santa Caterina has always been, and still is, a religious and social focal point for the inhabitants of Tolmezzo.

The Cathedral of San Martino is the city’s most important religious building. Built in the eighteenth century, the interior is also worth seeing, where works by the Venetian painters Fontebasso, Novelli and Diziani are conserved along with the series of the Apostles executed by the greatest Carnic painter of the eighteenth century, Nicola Grassi.

This is one of the greatest ethnographic museums in Europe, with its huge array of objects and documents. The collections have used documents and reconstructions to create an important close-up view of Carnic society between the 14th and 19th centuries.

Standing in the historic centre of the old Borgo della Roggia, the exterior aspect of Palazzo Frisacco (18th) is softened by sober eighteenth century design and sculpted stone profiling of the windows and the main entrance door. It was the rectory for a long time. Today, after the reconstruction work following the 1976 earthquake, it is used as a civic exhibition centre for art exhibitions.

A little higher above the town, on the slopes of Monte Strabut the castle or patriarchal palazzo stood. A moat bound it towards the mountains and a wall closed the surrounding area off sloping down into the valley. Torre Picotta was built between 1477 and 1479 to defend the town and the castle against the Turkish menace. Walking up Via Cascina, a side street of Via Roma takes you into the Pra-Castello area, where the manor house stood, and Torre Picotta The view from here takes in the entire surrounding countryside and the city itself.

Age-old residence of the Janesi family, which can be dated to the 15th-16th Century represents one of the few surviving examples of late Mediaeval civil construction in the city. The façade, now in exposed stonework, would originally have been covered with geometric design frescos. There are some traces in the fragments conserved in the upper section of the front façade. Particular noteworthy features are the trilobate arched mullion windows supported by slender Venetian Gothic stone columns.

Illegio town is often referred to as the “town of arches” because of the numerous houses with arched doors or gates, although it is also home to other unusual artistic and architectural features: from archaeological evidence identified beneath the churches of S. Floriano, S. Paolo and S. Vito, and near the zone named Castello del Broili to seventeenth century windmills, of which one, the Mulin dal Flec, is still operational.

Erected on a site that has been settled since the Pre-Roman period the church was rebuilt in the 16th Century and revised in 1856. It safeguards two eighteenth century Carnic woodcraft altars and a baptismal font hewn out of stone.

This is one of the most interesting natural environments in Carnia. A natural pathway equipped and marked out with information panels allows visitors to wander through the entire area characterised by three peat bogs and a vast assortment of plant varieties.