Carnia

Carnia (Friulian: Cjargne or Cjargna/Cjargno in local variants, Venetian: Ciargna, German: Karnien, Slovene: Karnija) is a historical-geographic region in the northeastern Italian area of Friuli.

Starting from 1400 BC, the demographic growth and the pressure of the Germanic peoples, originated a migratory flood towards the south.

The Carni crossed the Alps via the Plöcken Pass and settled in the region which is nowadays named Carnia and in the piedmont zone of Friuli.

In order to stem the Roman expansion and to acquire the fertile and more hospitable plains, the Carni tried to form alliances with the Histrian, the Iapode, and the Taurisci Celts.

Upon the Decline of the Roman Empire and the Migration Period, the area was subdued by invading Germanic Ostrogoths under Theodoric the Great and later by the Lombards, who incorporated it into the Duchy of Friuli, part of their Italian kingdom.

In the 843 Treaty of Verdun, the area south of the main chain of the Carnic Alps was attributed to the realm of Emperor Lothair I ("Middle Francia"), it was inherited by his eldest son, King Louis II of Italy in 855.

At the 952 Imperial Diet of Augsburg, he had to declare himself an East Frankish vassal, and the whole Veronese march came under the rule of the German stem duchy of Bavaria.

Carnia and Carinthia again went separate ways, when in 1077 King Henry IV of Germany during the Investiture Controversy with Pope Gregory VII split off large parts of Friuli to establish the Patriarchate of Aquileia as an Imperial State.

As the patriarchate was gradually conquered by the Republic of Venice, Carnia had passed from the Holy Roman Empire to the Venetian Domini di Terraferma by 1420.

Carnia is located south of the main chain of the Carnic Alps, in the northwest of the Udine province; it is bounded to the north by Austria and to the west by the Italian Veneto region.

Other main peaks of Carnia are: The most important river is the Tagliamento, which springs near the Mauria Pass (in the municipality of Lorenzago di Cadore) at an altitude of around 1000 meters.

[3] Along its long way throughout Carnia, the Tagliamento river receives water from 6 tributaries, all coming from left with respect to it: the Bût, the Degano, the Lumiei, the Pesarina, the Chiarsò, and the Monai, which name the valleys they lie in.