A HEARTY WELCOME...

Welcome to our small village which, even if little known, has a rich history, much of which is still to be born to light.
Arriving at Turrida you have seen the particular church tower, built between 1920 and 1925 on a project of Carlo Someda de Marco, a well appreciated architect in Udine, an art expert, and author of many studies regarding Friuli in particular, and the local artistic production. The particular shape of the tower, according the Florentine style, was meant to remind the history and the name of this village.

THE NAME , ABOVE ALL

The charming but dangerous position, along the Tagliamento river, has been the fortune and also the tragedy of the village: in fact the various floods during the centuries have provoked the total disappearing of the ancient ruins, devastated many times by the waters. The name "Turrida" almost certainly comes from the latin, but it is not excluded that, also before the Romans, Celtic and Gallical populations settled on the banks of the rivers just here.Trying to derive the toponym from the peoples that lived in Sarmatia, on the banks of the river Tùras, called Turîtai, seems too hazardous. The most probable hypotheses come from the Roman establishments that occupied the previous Gallic-Celtic villages and that may have various meanings: Villa turrita, simply inhabited and fortified country; Cohors o Curtis turrita, a group of houses in a closed circular place;

Praedia turrita, a fortified estate near the fords or rivers to watch the Gallo-Celts; Statio turrita, a station or a watch-place of the ford; Mansio turrita, a hostel or a stop place near the ford Castra turrita, instead, as a military garrison. All these are acceptable hypotheses, referring to the rimes of the Roman conquest and colonization, that took place after the foundation of the colony of Aquileia starting from 181 b. C.h

AND ALSO A LITTLE HISTORY

Therefore, Turrida, near a precious ford, characterized by shellow waters and a pebbly  riverbed that makes the crossing easier, got an advantage from this position till the late Middle Ages.
The roman finds appear numerous, but no serious excavation has still been started. Of these ancient presences there are some ruins of a Roman villa dating back to the middle of the 1st century b. Ch. to the 2nd AD, and also several finds that can be seen in the museums of Cividale, Udine and S. Daniele.

Ever if it is on the left bank of the Tagliamento, our village always belonged to the diocese of Concordia Sagittaria, exercising its jurisdiction over the territories of the right bank of the river. In 1186 a bull of Pope Urbano III nominates for the first time the Plebs de Ripis, belonging to the dioceses of Concordia, that the scholars have attributed to Turrida. In fact the village a bit south of Turrida (1,5 km) is called Rivis but it always belonged ecclesiastically subdued to the parish church of Turrida, which an its turn was detached from the more ancient church of S. Giorgio della Richinvelda beyond the Tagliamento.
However the clear name of Turrida is found in a document of 1227 in a legal cause for the possession of the church. If in 1174 the church of Turrida still depended on that of S. Giorgio and in 1227, instead, it was autonomous, the date of 1186 can be considered the one of the real separation of Turrida from the mother-church of S. Giorgio; it would have kept the title Plebs de Ripis awaiting its dedication to St. Martin of Tours . In that time the village was somewhere else, almost certainly more south and near today's riverbed, as a result of a disastrous flood that happened about the middle of the 18th century; starting from that date it was completely rebuilt, while of the previous village only a piece of wale of a house still exists.
But many other floods destroyed it also in the previous centuries.

THERE WAS ALSO A CASTLE

At the beginning of the 13th century in this village thre was a garnison of soldiers of Albert, count of Tyrol, and then it was ceded by the Patriarch himself. Then Turrida, that in those times for sure had also a castle that at present does not exist, passed to the Lords of Spilimbergo-Cuccagna (13th century), and then to the nobles Castello (14th century).
To testify the importance of the ford in these centuries, if you happen to visit the museums of the Vatican, on a fresco of the 16h century showing a map of Friuli, you can notice also our small village on the Tagliamento. After the internal struggles of the Friulan feudatories, Turrida, which had been sieged many times, passed under the Lords of Savorgnano till the Venetian period ((15th-18th centuries). Without the devastating  wars in these periods of peace, the quarrels for the pastures ammong the nearby villages were frequent, but the natural disasters exausted our people, till in 1797 Turrida  was at war again becaus of the first Napoleonic campaign. With Napoleon also the political authonomy of our village finished, and it was joined to the present comune of Sedegliano. Later, in 1818, also the church was detached from the diocese of Concordia and it was annexed to the diocese of Udine.

AND TODAY?

Now you can see the present church rebuilt on the ancient small church of St. Valentine in the 2nd half of the 18th century, after the flood mentioned above. Of the previous buildings nothing else remains but the two doorjambs of the main door, sculpted by Pilacorte in 1516 and the baptistery constituted by a holy-water font of 1506.
If you want to walk a little farther, the Tagliamento is there to give peace and calm to your trips on foot or by bicycle, in a still untouched and wild nature, even if near to cultivationd. The "Park of Acacias", where the feast of "cais" (snails - a local speciality) is kept, is at disposal for walks and pic-nics.
500 metres north, Redenzicco, an even smaller village but rich in history can offer splendid frescoes in the little church (14th - 15th centuries), while Rivis, 1 km south, has in its cemetery the only ancient church that survived to the floods of the river: the façade is decorated with a huge fresco of st. Christopher.
Whitin 4 km, at Sedegliano, you can visit the church of St. Peter and Paul with works of Pilacorte (16th century). At Coderno the home of p. David Maria Turoldo.
At Gradisca di Sedegliano there is an important "castelliere" a pre-historic fortification of a veneto of paleo-slavian village.

Thanking you for stroppino in this small piece of our Friulan fatherland, we wish you a nice continuation of your journey and hope to see you here again in Turrida.
To conclude, we say "MANDI", that is the greeting of our land in our local language!