I was starting my visit to the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta in Aquileia. The city of Aquileia is a small and quiet city but it used to be an important city in the Roman empire, in fact, at its height, it was one of the largest cities in the world. As far as important cities as concerned, they usually have important buildings and in the case of Aquileia, it has a large basilica in the middle of town. The basilica is part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing of Aquileia so I think this would be the best place to start my visit.

The modern basilica is large, in fact, too large for a small modern city of Aquileia to have. At the time of its importance to the Roman empire it probably needed a large church like this but these days more people probably visit it as a museum rather than a place for worship. I went to go in the basilica but was stopped by staff. I needed to purchase a ticket at the visitor center just across the plaza. There might have been a sign pointing there but I must have totally missed it. I purchased the ticket and I was in.

The first place I went to is one which isn’t part of the main basilica building. There is a structure just outside the front door of the basilica. I went in an saw that it a hexagonal shaped structure with a depression in the middle presumably for water. This appears to be the baptistry where of course baptisms are performed. This is not very remarkable but looking at the rest of the structure, I noticed that the a roof of fabric above the baptistry. I can’t tell if there was no roof here. It would be strange not to keep a roof here since this would have also been part of the UNESCO World Heritage site. However, what it did was it let more light into the baptistry. The walls are made of stone bricks but you can also see that there used to be a layer of plaster above the bricks. The walls used to have paintings on them but they have since succumbed to the ravages of time.

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