Magnano in Riviera

For ten years this comune went by another name. Until 1818 the capoluogo was Magnano and Billerio was one of its hamlets; between 1818 and 1828 the two swapped places, and the comune took the name of Billerio, with Magnano demoted to a hamlet. Then a decree of the viceroy of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, on the fifteenth of April 1828, put things back as they had been: Magnano was «again constituted and named Capoluogo of that comune as it was before the year 1818, instead of Billerio». The reason, written down in black and white, is the sort neighbours do not forget: «the much better condition and topographic position of Magnano compared with Billerio». After the annexation to Italy, in 1866, «in Riviera» was added to the name to distinguish it from other places of the same name.

The territory lies at the foot of the hills between Tarcento and Artegna, between one hundred and eighty-nine and four hundred and seventy-five metres, and it lives mainly on industry: those employed in industrial activities are more than forty per cent of the working force, which is not common in a village of this size. Alongside Italian, Friulian is spoken, in its central-eastern variety. In 1976 the Friuli earthquake devastated the comune, with enormous collapses, and what one sees today is largely rebuilt. From Magnano, finally, comes a singular figure: Alcide Fasiolo, in religion Athenagoras, bishop of Therme and auxiliary bishop of the Orthodox archdiocese of Italy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople — the first Italian and Friulian Orthodox bishop after the great schism of 1054.