Rive d'Arcano

Above the village, in the hamlet of Arcano Superiore, stands the castle of Tricano, or d'Arcano: it is the only survivor of the two or perhaps three that the family built in its fief, and it rises on an earlier fortification, possibly older than the tenth century. The family's name comes from its arms, where there were three black dogs to symbolise loyalty to the emperor and to the patriarch of Aquileia; that loyalty was rewarded with the hereditary office of marshals and standard-bearers of the church of Aquileia, and precisely for this the Tricano found themselves inside every feudal struggle that shook the Patriarchate between the fourteenth and the fifteenth century. In 1420 the castle passed to Venice, and in 1511 it was damaged during the peasant revolt of Shrove Thursday. Outside it is massive — late Romanesque mullioned windows, battlements, walkways, watchtowers — but inside it hides a country residence, with frescoes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

A dark story is tied to that castle. In 1635 Francesco d'Arcano married Todeschina di Prampero, who was later stabbed to death out of jealousy; it is told that before dying she wrote her initials in her own blood on a wall, and that the writing remained visible until the earthquake of 1976. The body Francesco had walled up, and it was found again during restoration work in the early twentieth century. Not far from the castle, in the fifteenth century, the pieve of San Martino was built; the other churches of the comune are San Mauro at Arcano Superiore, Sant'Andrea at Rodeano Alto and San Floriano at Pozzalis. Here, alongside Italian, Friulian is spoken, in its central-eastern variety. And there is a trade the village is known for that has nothing to do with castles: making slippers.