1887.] on Aquileia, the Precursor of Venice. 177 



The barbarous destruction of Aquileia was the cause of the 

 foundation of Venice. From Concordia, Altinum, Patavium, and all 

 the towns and villages along the Adriatic shore the inhabitants fled 

 in panic to the lugunes, and there between sea and sky, upon the little 

 islands which cluster round the Eialto, they founded their new settle- 

 ment which was one day to 



" hold the gorgeous east in fee, 

 And be the safeguard of the west." 



Aquileia never regained either her commercial or political import 

 ance. Ecclesiastically, however, she was still held in honour, and 

 her Patriarch was for centuries one of the most powerful spiritual 

 rulers in the north of Italy. A kind of rival patriarchate was 

 indeed established at Grade on the sea coast, under the protection of 

 the Byzantine Emperors, while the Lombards on the mainland 

 protected the Patriarch of Aquileia, but in the end Aquileia prevailed. 

 The cathedral of Aquileia, which was raised in the tenth century, is a 

 noble building in the Romanesque style, with some classical columns, 

 probably taken from a heathen temple, with a grouping of seats for 

 bishops and presbyters round the Patriarch, something like that 

 which is seen at Torcello, with a crypt in which is the tomb of St. 

 Hermagoras, the first bishop of Aquileia and alleged contemporary of 

 the Apostles, and with a high gable-crowned campanile detached from 

 the majn body of the church. 



The village, or to speak more accurately, the three villages which 

 lurk among the ruins of Aquileia, are of a mean and squalid appear- 

 ance, and as was said at the beginning of this paper, contain probably 

 little more than a hundredth of the population of the ancient city. 



[T. H.] 



Vol. XII. (No. 81.) 



