Udine

Udine's centre is a hill in an otherwise flat plain, and the town grew around it. Legend says Attila the Hun had his soldiers pile up earth in their helmets so he could watch Aquileia burn in 452; recent studies show the mound is indeed artificial, but from the Bronze Age, some 3,000 to 3,500 years old. The town is first recorded in 983, when Emperor Otto II gave the castle on the hill to the patriarchs of Aquileia, the feudal lords of Friuli. In 1222 Patriarch Bertoldo of Andechs moved here from earthquake-damaged Cividale, and the founding of a market in 1223 made Udine the leading centre of trade in the area.

Venice conquered the city in 1420, and Udine became the second-largest city of the Venetian state. In 1511 a short civil war was followed by an earthquake and plague; the castle and the patriarchal palace were rebuilt from 1517, and Andrea Palladio worked here in the 1550s. In the 18th century the patriarchal palace was enlarged under Patriarch Dionisio Dolfin, and Giambattista Tiepolo frescoed its rooms. After Venice fell in 1797 the city passed between Austria and Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy, then belonged to Austrian Lombardy-Venetia until it joined Italy in 1866. In 1880 the city council ordered the remaining sections of the medieval walls to be demolished.

From May 1915 to October 1917 Udine was the seat of the Italian High Command and was nicknamed the Capitale della Guerra, the War Capital. After the defeat at Caporetto it was occupied by German and then Austro-Hungarian troops until late 1918. From 1943 to April 1945 it was under direct German administration. Today it is the main city of Friuli and the capital of the regional decentralisation entity of Udine.

Udine is the main city of Friuli, and for centuries it was a Venetian city, in contrast to Austrian Trieste. Along with Italian, Friulian is often spoken in the streets and is taught in the city's schools, and a Venetian variant once common here is in decline. The look of the centre is Venetian — loggias, a clock tower with figures that strike the hours, the lion of St Mark on a column — a reminder of almost four centuries of rule from the lagoon.

The city's best-known cultural event looks far to the east: since 1997 the Far East Film Festival has made Udine one of Europe's main showcases for popular East Asian cinema, filling the Teatro Nuovo Giovanni da Udine and the Visionario cinema every spring. Udin&Jazz in June, a guitar festival in the castle's parliament hall and the literary prize Premio Friuli Storia add to the calendar, and Friuli Doc in September fills the squares with food and wine stands. The patron saints, Hermagoras and Fortunatus, are celebrated on 12 July.

Football matters: Udinese, founded in 1896, have played in every Serie A season since 1995–96, and their stadium also hosts the city's biggest concerts. The local basketball club, APU Udine, has played in the top league. Daily sociability centres on the squares, and the habit of a tajut — a small glass of white or red at the bar — is part of the city's character.

About 98,000 people live in the municipality, according to the 2025 figure, and about 176,000 in the urban area. After a fall in the 1990s, the population has grown again thanks to immigration: at the start of 2024, foreign residents made up about 15 per cent of the city's people, the second-highest share among the region's provincial capitals. A Slovene-speaking community lives in the border area close by.

The economy rests on administration, commerce and services. Udine is the seat of the regional decentralisation entity of Udine, of regional offices, hospitals, banks and the University of Udine, and it has long been the market town for the whole of Friuli, with shopping centres spread across its hinterland. The big steelworks and food factories have closed, but iron and engineering firms such as Danieli and ABS are still important employers, and in 2010 the city ranked first among the region's provincial capitals for average taxable income.

Life is unhurried. The pedestrian streets fill in the early evening, students from the university give the centre some energy, and the historic borghi inside the old walls organise their own festivals. The railway station is the most important in the region, used by about 7.6 million travellers a year.

Udine eats Friulian food, which is hearty: polenta, frico, soups and minestrone, pork products, brovada and musetto, frittatas made with wild herbs, and game, usually with a glass of white or red wine. Frico, the most typical dish of Friuli, began as a way of using up cheese rinds; the soft version is made of Montasio cheese pressed into a cake with potatoes and onions and fried until crisp on both sides, while a thin version is just melted cheese crisped in the pan.

Slovenia is half an hour away, and goulash and ćevapčići served with polenta have entered the local repertoire. From Trieste come jota and boiled meats, and from the hills prosciutto di San Daniele, trout and asparagus. Montasio cheese and cured meats such as salame, soppressa and lardo are produced locally, and Udine's bread has a distinctive double-horn shape. Among the sweets are gubana and strucchi, crostoli at carnival and favette for All Souls.

Some dishes belong to particular days: tripe on Christmas Eve, herring with onion on Ash Wednesday and mulled wine at Epiphany. Borgo Grazzano holds a festival of frogs, crots in Friulian. The local wines include Friulano, Ramandolo, Verduzzo and Ribolla Gialla among the whites and Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso and Schioppettino among the reds,.