Gemona del Friuli

Evidence of human occupation in Gemona goes back to prehistoric times. The town occupies a key point on the road from Italy to Austria, and there are traces of Celtic occupation around the year 500 BCE.

The area was subject to various invasions in the period 166–750, including Huns, Marcomanni, Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Lombards, who had it as a stronghold from about 558. Lombard historian Paul the Deacon mentions it in 611 as an "impregnable castle". From the fall of the Lombard Kingdom of Italy until 952 Gemona was under Carolingian rulers. During this period the castle was built, the modern town growing around it.

From 776, Gemona became an important part of the Patriarchate of Aquileia. In the 12th century Gemona was an autonomous commune: in 1184 the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa granted a charter for the town's market. In the 13th and 14th centuries it returned to the Patriarchate, until, in 1420, that state was absorbed by the Republic of Venice.

In 1797 French troops under Napoleon defeated the Venetian Republic: in 1798, after the Treaty of Campo Formio, Gemona came under Austrian rule. Following a plebiscite in 1866, Gemona became part of the newly unified Kingdom of Italy.

The present town is medieval in origin but was badly damaged in the 1976 Friuli earthquake. Restoration began the same year, and now the town has been largely restored. Since 2008 the castle gardens have been reopened to the public and since 2010 various cultural events have been held there in the summer^[3]. The renovation of the buildings is ongoing: as of November 2024 the clock tower and the former prisons were completed, and since 2019 it has been a museum exhibition venue.^[4]

Gemona's main attraction is the medieval cathedral (Duomo), dating to the 14th century, with its massive campanile (freestanding bell tower) of the same period. The collections of its Museo Civico include a Madonna and Child by Cima da Conegliano.

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  Hulk of the Chiesa della Beata Vergine delle Grazie, as a result of the 1976 earthquake
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  Christ Before Caiaphas, fresco in Ognissanti church, Ospedaletto.
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  The Tagliamento River with Gemona in the background
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  The Carnic Prealps from the Gemona plain
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  Ledra Canal near Osoppo
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  The town hall of Gemona del Friuli

Gemona del Friuli is twinned with:

• Velden am Wörther See, Austria
• Laakirchen, Austria
• Foligno, Italy, since 2001

• Alessandro Cicutti (born 1987), footballer

• Lake Ospedaletto
• 1976 Friuli earthquake