Введение Santa Maria la Longa: cycling in the middle of the Friulian plain

Welcome to the Municipality of Santa Maria la Longa. The municipality consists of five villages: the main town and the hamlets of Tissano, Mereto di Capitolo, Santo Stefano Udinese and Ronchiettis. Until 1797, there was also a village called Ronchis, that was destroyed by Napoleon’s French armies to make room for the third town wall of Palmanova. Like many other towns in the Friulian lowlands, Santa Maria la Longa was first mentioned in a document from 1031, the year when the Aquileia Basilica was inaugurated. On that occasion Patriarch Poppone established the so-called Chapter of Aquileia, which included some territories of the Church of Aquileia listed in a bull bearing the date of the Basilica inauguration.