FRIULI (in Italian, Friuli ; in French, Frioul ; in German, Friaul ; and in the local dialect, Furlanei), a district at thehead of the Adriatic,at present divided bet ween Italyand Austria, the Italian portion being included in the province of Udine, and the Austrian comprising the countship of Görtz and Gradiska and the so-called Idrian district. In the north and east it is occupied by portions of the Julian and Carnian Alps, while the south is an alluvial plain richly watered by the Isonzo, the Tagliamento, and many lesser streams which, although of small volume during the dry season, come down in enormous floods after rain or thaw. The inhabitants known as Furlanians are probably in the main Latinized Celts, largely mingled with Italians on the one hand and Slovenians on the other. They speak a language much more akin to Latin than even Italian; details about which will be found in Pirona’s Attenenze della lingua friulana date per chiosa ad una iscrizione del 1103, Udine, 1859, and Vocabulario friulino, Venice, 1869....
Friuli derives its name from the Roman town of Forum Julii, or Forojulium, which is said by Paulus Diaconus to have been founded by Julius Caesar. In the 2d century b.c. the district was subjugated by the Romans, and became part of Gallia Transpadana. During the Roman period, besides Forum Julii, its principal towns were Concordia, Aquileia, Vedinium, and Naeria. On the conquest of the country by the Lombards it was made one of their thirty-six duchies, the capital being Forum Julii or, as they called it, Civitas Austriae. It is needless to repeat the list of dukes of the Lombard line, from Gisulf to Rodgaud, who fell a victim to his opposition to Charlemagne; their names and exploits may be read in Paulus Diaconus. The discovery, however, of Gisulf’s grave at Cividale, in 1874, is interesting as proof of the historian’s authenticity. Charlemagne naturally filled Rodgaud’s place with one of his own followers, and the frontier position of Friuli gave the new line of counts, dukes, or margraves (for they are variously designated) the opportunity of acquiring importance by exploits against the Bulgarians, Slovenians, and other hostile peoples to the east. In the 11th century the ducal rights over the greater part of Friuli were bestowed by the emperor on the archbishop of Aquileia; but towards the close of the 14th century the nobles called in the assistance of Venice, which, after defeating the archbishop, afforded a new illustration of Aesop’s well-known fable, by securing possession of the country for itself. The eastern part of Friuli was held by the counts of Görtz till 1500, when on the failure of their line it was appropriated by Maximilian I. By the peace of Campo Formio (1797) the Venetian district also came to Austria, and on the formation of the Napoleonic kingdom of Italy in 1805, the department of Passariano was made to include the whole of Venetian and part of Austrian Friuli, and a few years later the rest was added to the Illyrian provinces. The title of duke of Friuli was borne by Marshal Duroc. In 1814 the whole country was recovered by the emperor of Austria, who himself assumed the ducal title and coat of arms; and it was not till 1866 that the Venetian portion was again ceded to Italy by the peace of Nikolsburg.
See H. Palladius, Rerum Foro-Juliensium Libri XII., Udine, 1659; Palladio degli Olivi, Historia della provincia del Friuli, Udine, 1660; Memoric della geografia antica del Friuli, Udine, 1775-1778; Gio. Lirati, Notizie delie Cose del Friuli, Udine, 1776-1777; Bianchi, Documenti per la storia del Friuli, 1317-1332, Udine, 1844-45, 3 vols., and his Documenta historica Forojuliensia seculi XIII., Vienna, 1861; Czaernig “Ueber Friuli, seine Geschichte, Sprache, und Alterthümer,” in the Sitzungsberichte der philos. -hist. Classe, Vienna, vol. x., 1853; Foscolo, Relatione della patria del Friuli, Venice, 1856.
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