Palazzo Manin Antonini (Moruzzo)

 In 1620, Hieronimus Santonini, one of the four consorts of the fiefdom of Fagagna, by then old and reduced to poverty, ceded his tenure to Orazio Manin whose family, originally from Tuscany, had been living in Udine since the 14th century. The Manins, in addition to houses in Borgo S. Bartolomeo (now Manin) in Udine, had landed property and a manor house on the western slopes of the hill of Moruzzo, in the hamlet known as 'della Calcina', on the road axis linking Pagnacco to Fagagna along the ridges of the first circle of the moraine hills.

Orazio Manin, invested with the title of Count in 1640, although he also bought a house in the now ruined castle enclosure of Fagagna, continued to live in his residence in nearby Moruzzo. The palace then passed in the 18th century through female line descent to the Antonini family.

The palace already existed before 1620, as is denoted by its construction layout typical of the strong house of the previous century. The thickness of the stone walls and the two towers on either side of the palace date the building's origin to 1500 on older presences, of which some traces of foundations remain on the south side.

The two-storey dominical palace is at the centre of a series of building aggregates functional to the activity of the farm: folador, cellars, barns, wagon sheds, stables, housing for seasonal labour. The walled enclosure, partly crenellated, encloses the 'braida' with the vineyard, the 'brollo' and a wooded park, while a second, more internal enclosure includes the 'bearzo' and the courtyard immediately behind the palace. Sections of the strong walls (remember that in 1500 the memory of the violence committed by the plebs at the beginning of that century was still alive and the raids of the Turks were still evoked) remain visible, although in a poor state of preservation, along the north side of the property.

The mighty original appearance was then refined during the 17th and 18th centuries by opening up the south façade with the elegant three-mullioned window above the entrance 'portego' and the series of stone-framed windows on the piano nobile; but these interventions did not completely erase the grim appearance of the building, still called the 'palaç' by the inhabitants of Moruzzo. 

The entire complex, bordered to the west by the 17th-century Church of the Holy Trinity, was then given a perspective dimension with the construction of the road leading straight to the main gate, whose side columns are surmounted by characteristic pyramidal obelisks from the Venetian era.

The rooms on the piano nobile are frescoed with mythological scenes, and on the south façade, two sundials are beautifully displayed. Recently restored, the room under the east tower features 19th-century frescoes by Domenico Paghini, depicting landscapes that recall views of the surrounding hills in classical style. The Manin Antonini palace, entirely privately owned, is in a fair state of preservation, while the long disuse of the rustic parts has contributed to their serious deterioration.