WIKIPEDIA
Turist information
HISTORY
Grado arose in ancient Roman age as a port and harbour of nearby Aquileia to ensure a shelter its vessels . Towards the end of the fourth century was built a castrum, a fort that is now the Old Town. Aquileia had the opportunity to verify the validity of the castrum (fort) almost immediately because of the barbarian invasions with the descent of Alaric (401) and the Visigoths (403) Chromatius the bishop of Aquileia (388-408) seems to find refuge in Grado while a few decades later people of Aquilei also took refuge there due the invasion of the Huns of Attila (452), which resulted in the destruction of Aquileia. Due the invasion of Alboin (in 571)Aquileia fell under Lombard rule, while Grado remain under the influence of Byzantium. They had thus beginning the endless disputes about who was the legitimate patriarch, the schism of the "Three Chapters," which began: the split of patriarchy, had resulted in the development of an independent stance by Grado and their Patriarch, the Bishop Elijah (571-589) facing of the Empire and the Papacy. The Patriarchate of Aquileia exercises his power over the mainland while Grado extended its influence to the Diocese of Istria and Venezia Marittima. In a council of 589 land and in coastal lombard-roman-byzantine bishops reaffirmed the adherence to the church tradition and in 687 there was a schismatic patriarch in Aquileia and another in Grado, obedient to Rome.
The Patriarchate of Grado lasted about three centuries and its influence and power progressively decreased cause the development of the Duchy of Venice and the subsequent transfer of the Patriarch (1105). Grado fell in a political and economic isolation and in 1451 culminated with the loss of the Patriarchate becoming dominium of the Republic of Veneziae following its historical events.
Grado in 1892 under Emperor Franz Joseph received the status of resort and spa. Only with the end of World War I was re-annexed to Italy.
ART AND CULTURE
On the site where a basilica was built, perhaps desired in the fifth century Patriarch Niketas after the invasion of Attila, November 3 579 Elijah Patriarch consecrated in honor of the martyr Euphemia, the patron saint of Chalcedon (451), a large Basilica resulting from rearrangement, or the completion of the previous year.
Built of brick and sandstone, the great basilica, tall Adriatic, suffered during the XVII and XIX overlaps and changes that the recent restoration (1939-1951) eliminated calls into light the original almost completely preserved.
The facade, with highlights, with pilasters accentuate the geometry has three large windows in the middle and still shows signs of connection of a former narthex, down at the end of last century. The right side bore the elegant bell tower, also in brick, built in 1455 and topped by a Venetian statue embossed copper weather vane, 9,18 ft high, placed there in 1462, representing St. Archangel Raphael, but in Grado - where it has become a symbol - called simply ANZOLO (Angel). Also outside, beautiful rhythm of the windows that open both in the nave in the aisles.
Inside, the large bright room with beamed ceiling is divided into three naves by a series of columns on which you set various marble arches that apace with their accompanying gaze to smooth apse.
The columns are partly Roman, partly of the sixth century, as the capitals surmounting that (some of whom are from eastern shops). A Corinthian capital of the Augustan era was transformed into holy water.
The most spectacularly beauty of church is constituted by the large mosaic floor, dating from the late sixth century, reminding also what remains in the annex, is about seven hundred square meters, including even large sections rebuilt in 1946-48 with more soft colors, so as to distinguish from the original remake, without compromising too much the whole vision.
Note, among the mosaics, many written with the names of bidders, and also through apertures, the remains of a basilica of the late fourth century, a baptismal font and a hexagonal mosaic tomb (perhaps 451) with a interesting Latin inscription "Here lies Peter said Pararione, son of Jewish Olympus, the only one among his people who deserved to reach the grace of Christ and was properly buried in this holy place the day before the Ides of July, the fourth call".
Before the presbytery is the hexagonal pulpit decorated with symbols of four evangelists and a cross in relief: probably the work of Venetian masters of the thirteenth century, the upper part, with Moorish arches and the dome is not free from oriental influences.
In the sanctuary, now fenced with parapets, note the mosaic of 1950 (designed by L. Pavan) with the ideal reconstruction of the castrum of Grado, some painted wooden boards of the sixteenth century (German school), frescoes of little value in the apse (XIV-XV), behind the altar modern, large silver-gilt altarpiece offered to the church of Grado in 1372 from a Venetian nobleman Donato Mazzalorsa, as stated in an inscription at the bottom. It is a cantilever and chisel work of considerable size (cm. 138x226) divided into three registers, with the Annunciation, symbols of the Evangelists and Christ within frames lobed in the upper figures of saints under Gothic arches in the other. In the central compartment, the enthroned Christ and St. Mark celebrating mass. Unknown is the name of the author, who uses a Gothic style, with Byzantine substrates, which commemorates the frontal S. Mark and a prelude to the sensitivity of the Gothic.
Four rooms adjoining the church worth visiting: the "tricora" or Chapel St. Marco, the mosaic floor with the ground wave underwater, where a collection of precious marble with reliefs of the early Christian and early medieval period, is entered through a door behind the altar of the Blessed Sacrament.
Down the aisle, however, opens a door to the Mausoleum, a small building with apse, whose mosaic floor bears the monogram in the center of Elijah Episcopus Helias. It is thought that above the mosaic was originally placed a coffin containing the body of Bishop Elias (c. 587), but is certain that a bishop, that mark was buried there in the early seventh century, as evidenced by the inclusion still visible in the left wall.
Mausoleum In addition to a antependio carved wood and painted with piety and holiness, a teacher in northern sixteenth century, it retains the Cathedral Treasury, impoverished, and not a little over the centuries, but still capable of arousing interest and admiration.
They include processional crosses, reliquaries, boxes, several centuries of monstrance in silver and gold and some exceptional pieces: a Byzantine stauroteca VI-VII century placed in a reliquary of 1891, two relics for Capsella, embossed silver engraved, an elliptical of the fifth century, with the two figures of Christ between Peter and Paul, and the busts of saints Quirino Canzio, Canziano and Latin, the other cylindrical seventh century, depicting the Madonna and Child in the Queen cover.
Near the entrance to the Mausoleum, at the bottom of the right aisle, a door take in a hallway where you see the modern salutatorium, where the patriarch received the homage of the clergy. Here too the floor is a mosaic of Elijah monogram in the center, gold tiles and an inscription with his name surrounded by inscriptions of ecclesiastical and secular donors. There is also a mold of so-called "Chair of St. Mark" Grey alabaster reliquary that the emperor Heraclius in 630 gave to the patriarch in primitive and original is the treasure of S. Marco in Venice, where it arrived before 1520.
Near salutatorium is the lapidary, outside the Basilica, sarcophagi, parapets, marble fragments, inscriptions, capitals of the early Christian and early medieval period.
Caught between the cathedral and picturesque old houses of Grado, the Baptistery is as elegant as a simple brick building probably built in the mid-fifth century, at the time of Bishop Niketas. Regular octagonal structure (with a small apse), twelve meters high (How large is the extent of the diagonal), has three doors, one center and two sides dell'absidiola and eight windows at the top, similar in shape to those of the Cathedral.
Inside the mosaic floor still shows tracks originating at the center of the baptismal font hexagonal compartment (covered with marble recent). The square are placed three beautiful Roman sarcophagi from the second or third century AD, discovered in the basement of the town in 1860.
The Basilica of St. Mary is the third of the jewels of early christian Grado, has a beautiful brick facade (and the square stones), a salient, with pilasters which accentuate the tripartite division and creating sensitive and pleasing chiaroscuro effects. At the top an elegant bay, with carry-Roman capitals, illuminates the church.
The age of the original building dates from the mid fifth century, but during the age of Elijah the church was rebuilt as we see today (brought to light and - in part - rebuilt during the restoration of some fifty years ago, have eliminated heavy overlap of the seventeenth century).
Inside is just highlight the disparity between the high central nave and side one divided between them by small columns of various marbles, most of the sixth century. In the right aisle, you can see a mosaic floor with geometric designs and names of bidders dating at the time of initial construction.
At the center of the square named after the poet Biagio Marin Grado (former Victory Square) are the ruins of the Basilica of St. John the Evangelist was built in the ninth century on the foundations of an existing building of the fifth century: the elegant mosaic floor, with patterns of crosses and knots of Solomon.
Finished the visits to monuments, just have a quick walk around the old town, the original core of able, through the narrow and bumpy "Calle Lunga" and going through the streets and squares enjoy the charm still intact of remote ages; recovered through the urban fabric remained fairly consistent and unchanged over time, the face of an Upper Adriatic seaside village where they still speak an archaic dialect of Veneto stopping to see the old houses (mostly fishermen houses ) that unusual curious architectural motifs - windowsills ,external stairs ,biforas, balconies, porticos, chimneys of all kinds - vividly characterized.
As for contemporary architecture, are significant to the dam condominium Marcello D'Olivo, Terme di Gianni Avon, Palazzo dei Congressi by Gianni and Marco Zanuso Avon.
Isle of Barbana, in the lagoon, frequented shrine dedicated to Our Lady which legend says was built in 582 when Grado was devastated by a storm surge that everything destroyed - people saw a statue of the Virgin Mary floating in the water that came to rest in Barbana island.
The shrine was built recently (1924, Arch. Baresi Silvano), neo-Romanesque, with a façade of three bays in the frescoes in the presbytery are Donadon Tiburcio, while the altar of the Madonna is the work of the Venetian sculptor Giovanni Battista Viviani and Marino Groppelli (eighteenth century, the beautiful bas-relief in the frontal). The venerated statue painted wood of the Madonna dating from the late fifteenth century (school Friuli). Interesting ex-votos in the sanctuary has a rich collection: they are mostly thanks to the seafarers who gives the Lady of Barban miraculous rescues, but also concern the vow made by many countries of Friuli saved from the plague. In the sacristy, a nice amtependium of the seventeenth century with gold and above the door of the eleventh century bas-relief with a scene interpreted as a parable of the barren fig tree.
On the island there is also the Chapel of the Apparition, octagonal building built in 1858, with frescoes by Rocco Pitacco (1860) representing the Immaculate Conception and Glory scenes from the history of the Shrine.
