The Basilica of Aquileia has an architectural history dating back to the 4th century AD. Through numerous reconstructions over the course of its history, it now presents a building with a strong Romanesque-Gothic influence. Particularly noteworthy within is the 4th-century polychrome floor mosaic, the largest in the Western world from the early Christian period.
Visiting this place of worship allows visitors to retrace more than 1,700 years of history, which recounts the evolution not only of artistic creation, thanks to the mosaics, frescoes, and architectural structures present here, but also of the relationship between Western man and Christianity.
An image of the Capitoline Wolf dominates the central Via Poppone, above the bell tower of the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta. This is not an ancient sculpture, but a monument donated to Aquileia by the city of Rome in 1919, on the occasion of the twenty-first centenary of the founding of the colony (181 AD). The nationalistic enthusiasm that swept Italy after the victory in the First World War allows us to understand the true reason for the gift: to celebrate the reconquered Italian identity of Aquileia and the entire eastern Friuli region after the long Austro-Hungarian rule.