Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Basilica of Aquileia

Grass and vineyards now cover what was once among the richest cities of the early Roman Empire. Aquileia, in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, was wrecked by Attila's Huns in the mid-400s and never rebuilt on the same scale — leaving an immense archaeological reserve still largely below ground. Above it stands the patriarchal basilica, whose 4th-century floor is one of the largest early Christian mosaics anywhere. UNESCO inscribed the site in 1998 for both the buried city and the basilica that carried Christianity into central Europe.