Town Hall

In the center of Cividale del Friuli, in front of the Cathedral and in the square of the same name, stands the Palazzo Comunale.
There is news of a municipal house existing here as early as 1296, which was then remodeled in the fifteenth century and rebuilt from 1545 to 1588. It was very different from what we see today.
The upper floor was accessed by an external staircase, from which it was customary to ban the notices or read sentences of condemnation. The Palace underwent several alterations when in 1936 the external staircase was demolished in the radical transformation.
It is open at the bottom with an ogival portico. The windows on the first floor, on the façade towards Largo Boiani, are single and double lancet windows. Here, too, is a baroque frame, the bust of Domenico Mocenigo, Provveditore Veneto who proved to be very capable during the plague of 1682.
On the façade facing the Duomo there is a bas-relief with the Lion of St. Mark with an epigraph dating back to 1560, and, below, a plaque commemorating the visit of Emperor Franz I of Austria in 1816. The adjoining modern part of the Town Hall It was built in 1966-70.
In the beams of the loggia, restored in 1958, the coats of arms of the noble families of Cividale are painted. On the wall there are instead two tombstones dedicated to Giuseppe Garibaldi and Vittorio Emanuele II, with an effigy in a medallion in low relief.
In the inner courtyard, (entered under the loggia at the time of the municipal offices), there are the remains of a Roman house of the I-II century, which was brought to light in 1938. Of this Roman house, to this day, are seven environments have been identified. The most visible one has a mosaic floor with black and white tesserae, very well preserved.
Inside the Town Hall, in the council hall there are impressive portraits of Provveditori Veneti and in two rooms there are frescoes by Francesco Chiarottini from Cividale. In another wall, a mosaic depicts a battle scene of the Longobards by the Udinese Gianni Borta (1971).
In memory of the founder of the city Caio Giulio Cesare, in front of the main façade, in 1935 a bronze statue was placed, a copy of a marble from the Trajan era, located in Campidoglio in Rome.