Porcia

The municipality of Porcia comprises the hamlets of Palse, Pieve, Rondover, Rorai Piccolo, Sant'Antonio, Spinazzedo and Talponedo.

Porcia is a nice town that, although deeply affected by industrial development (namely, the household electrical appliances sector), has been able to preserve an almost unspoilt historic centre, with very interesting elements, as well as a splendid natural heritage linked to water (Bujon Stream, Sentiron Stream, Burida Lake, Noncello River).

The area features several prehistoric settlements of the Bronze and Iron Ages, such as the hamlets of Castellet, Castelir di Pieve (surely a "castelliere" - a fortified borough), San Cristoforo but, above all, Santa Rufina di Palse, where a Paleo-Venetian village, the most important settlement of the Iron Age in western Friuli (9th-8th century B.C.), has been recently brought to life.

During this millennium of history, the primitive Castrum de Porcileis has been subjected to many enlargements and changes and the result thereof is an original and very interesting complex.

Next to it you will find the neo-Gothic parish church of St. George (evidence of which dates back to 1262, re-built in the 16th century and modified in the 19th century), which preserves fragments of 16th-century frescoes, an altarpiece by F. Figini called "da Milano" (1515) in a coeval golden altar, an altarpiece by Palma il Giovane (1621), a precious wooden choir by N. Pensi di Roraigrande from Pordenone (1631), a seventeenth-century wooden baptistery attributed to A. Ghirlanduzzi, four large canvas (once intended to close the organ) by J. Fischer and a funeral bas-relief by P. Miglioretti (1850).

Very peculiar is the near bell tower of 1488, born to emulate St. Mark's bell tower in Venice, but forcedly interrupted at only 44 metres and badly concluded; it is made up of two concentric ducts among which a step-less ramp goes up, on which donkeys can go during the mid-August "Palio dei Muss" (Donkey Race).

The town centre features the Porta di Sopra o dell'Orologio gate, with Ghibelline crenellation (13th century), some palaces of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries (such as the Gherardini, with a remarkable park, the Fresco - De Mattia, the Feudo), some medieval corners, the fragments of the old walls, the loggia, where justice was administered (renovated in the 16th century) and, finally, in the main square, the church of our Lady of the Assumption (founded by the Battuti Confraternity in the 14th and 15th centuries and renovated in 1555 and 1892), next to which a curious bell tower with a fired brick cusp stands.

On the eastern outskirts, on the road towards Pordenone, after the Colombera tower, hidden in the vegetation of an old park (15th century), in the hamlet of Roraipiccolo, you will find the spectacular Villa Correr-Dolfin (17th century), situated in a beautiful environment (the park, the lawn, the undamaged stone walls, the barchessa (outhouse), the coeval chapel with three beautiful wooden statues probably by A. Brustolon, the poor but charming remains of Villa Gabelli) and the very old St. Agnes' church (13th century, with the new one - 1930 - next to it by D. Rupolo), which also features, besides anonymous frescoes of the 14th and 16th centuries, a fresco by G. A. Pordenone, which serves as an altarpiece (beginning of the 16th century).

To the west, in the hamlet of Pieve di Palse, you will find St. Vigilio's church, among the oldest in the area, which, despite the modifications in the seventeenth century, still preserves fragments of frescoes of the 14th and 15th centuries, as well as more recent works, such as the holy water stoup by A. Pavanello (1643).