LatinRiteExtinct

Aquileian Rite

Also called Patriarchine rite, rito patriarchino

The rite of the Aquileian patriarchate — a lost early local rite, and late-medieval Patriarchine books that are Roman-type uses, ended by 1598.

Last verified 2026-09-20

IKnow it

In Brief

The Aquileian rite is two things, and the entry must say which it means. The first is a lost early local rite: the liturgy of late-antique Aquileia, known from Chromatius's sermons, the pre-Carolingian Capitulare Evangeliorum of the Codex Rehdigeranus, and Paulinus II's hymns — with North-Italian and Milanese affinities.12 The second is the late-medieval Patriarchine books: printed missals of 1508, 1517 and 1519, and a breviary of 1496, which are Roman-type books with a proper use — sanctoral, sequences, rubrics, Holy Week customs — closer in kind to Sarum than to the Ambrosian.345 The catalog keeps the entry typed as a rite, and the early layer is the rite; the Patriarchine books are its late, Roman-type phase, effectively a use.5

At a Glance

Tradition
Latin
Type
Rite
Status
Extinct
Celebrated by (Catholic)
The patriarchate of Aquileia, and also Como, Trieste and Istria5as of c. 1500
Liturgical languages
Latin3
Principal books
The printed missals of 1508, 1517 and 1519; the 1496 breviary; the pre-Carolingian Capitulare Evangeliorum (Codex Rehdigeranus)2,3,4
Origin
Two layers: a lost early local rite with North-Italian and Milanese affinities, and the late-medieval Patriarchine books — Roman-type local books, effectively a use2,5

Where to Experience It

IIUnderstand it

The Shape of the Liturgy

The shape of the early layer is fragmentary: Chromatius's sermons witness baptism and the feasts of the late fourth century; Morin's study of the Rehdigeranus capitulary shows a pre-Carolingian liturgical year with Milanese features — no Septuagesima, a short pre-Lent.12 The shape of the late layer is book-shaped. The missals are securely catalogued: Augsburg 1508 (Johann Oswalt, printed at Venice by Lucantonio Giunta); Venice 1517 (Peter Liechtenstein, 5 August); Venice 1519 (Gregorius de Gregoriis, 15 September).637 Any fifteenth-century printed Aquileian missal is unconfirmed and is not claimed. The modern Vatican facsimile reproduces the 1517 edition — not the 1519 — with Peressotti's introduction as the best entry to the printed missal.8 Pressacco's census of the printed missal's tropes, proses and sequences shows what made the books patriarchine in practice: the proper sequentiary.9 Peressotti's collected prayer texts and Gerardi's short synthesis complete the modern shelf.1011

History

The early Aquileian liturgy belonged to the North-Italian world: the capitulary's Milanese affinities are seen, not inferred, and Cabrol's classic account reports that the older writers — De Rubeis, Bona, Le Brun — thought the rite close to the Roman, while noting those Milanese parallels.25 Baumstark's 1904 "Exarchate" thesis, linking the patriarchine rite to Ravenna and Aquileia and to the origins of the Roman canon, remains influential and disputed.12

The late layer ended the way Sarum ended — by adoption, not by suppression — but later and more messily. Quo primum (1570) qualified the Aquileian and Como uses: the bull permits such churches to keep their rite, and lets them adopt the new Missal with the consent of the bishop and the whole chapter.13 They chose, or were pressed, to adopt the Roman books. A synod held at Aquileia in 1596 records that the metropolitan church had formerly sung the hours from its own breviary and had its own missal and rites — a record of prior abandonment, not necessarily the act of suppression.5 At Como the synodal statutes of 1565 and 1579 still required the church's own rites where its missals were available; the 1579 apostolic visitation criticised the Como "Patriarchine" breviary for errors and apocryphal histories; and the final abandonment of 1597–98, under Clement VIII, is secondarily reported.5 Trieste went in 1586 and Venice in 1456 — except St Mark's, whose distinct ducal-chapel use, also called "patriarchino", lasted until 19 October 1807 and must not be conflated with Aquileia's.14

Milestones

  1. c. 400Chromatius's sermons — the primary witness to late-4th/5th-c. Aquileian liturgy (baptism, feasts)1
  2. 1496Breviarium secundum usum Aquileie (Venice: Torresani, 29 July 1496)4
  3. 1517Missale Aquileyensis Ecclesie (Venice: Liechtenstein, 5 August 1517) — the edition of the modern Vatican facsimile3,8
  4. 1596The Aquileia synod records that the metropolitan church formerly had its own breviary, missal and rites — prior abandonment, not necessarily suppression5

Texts & Books

The best short classic account is Cabrol's DACL article (1907), cols 2683/2684–2691 — free, and the source that quotes the 1596 and Como texts.5 The printed missal is best met in Peressotti's 2007 Vatican facsimile of the 1517 edition, with his introduction.8 Morin's 1902 Revue bénédictine article — free — gives the pre-Carolingian year from the Codex Rehdigeranus.2 For the music, Huglo's 1976 survey is the best short account; for the sequentiary, Pressacco (1995); for the prayer texts, Peressotti's Fonti (2006); for the oral survival, Barzan and Vildera (2000).91015 Baumstark (1904) is free and remains the stimulating, disputed thesis.12

Family & Relations

The Aquileian rite sits between Milan and Rome, and the Index refuses to collapse it into either. Do not call it simply Ambrosian: Milanese affinities early, a Roman-type use late.25 Do not conflate it with St Mark's Venetian patriarchine: Diclich's 1823 book describes a distinct ducal-chapel use.14 In kind, the late Patriarchine books belong with the other great medieval uses of the Roman Rite — Sarum above all — and against the Ambrosian rite proper, which survived where Aquileia's books did not. The Pressacco "Alexandrian roots" thesis, aired at the 2008 Aquileia conference, is a minority hypothesis, flagged as such. And Quo primum did not abolish Aquileia: the bull that exempted the old uses is the bull that let them go.13

Aquileian Rite

Compare with

  • Ambrosian Rite: the North-Italian rite it is often confused with — Milanese affinities early, a Roman-type use late2
  • Sarum Use: the other late-medieval Roman-type local use — what the Patriarchine books are in kind5

IIIStudy it

The Rite Today

No authorised celebration of an Aquileian-rite Mass is documented to 2026. What survives is ceremony and song, and the entry names them honestly. The Messa dello Spadone at Cividale, on 6 January — the dean in a plumed helmet saluting with a sword, a custom going back to 1366 and Patriarch Marquard of Randeck — is a Latin Mass accompanied by ancient Aquileian chants; whether it is a Roman-rite Mass with surviving patriarchal ceremonial or in Aquileian form is not documented, and the Index does not call it an "Aquileian-rite Mass". The folk-liturgical "canto patriarchino" was sung in Istrian and Friulian parishes into the twentieth century: an oral chant tradition, not a rite.15 The survivals are real, and they are not proof of a living rite.

Disputed Questions

Rite or use — which layer does 'Aquileian' name?
  • Which types aquileian as a rite — a decision confirmed on 13 September 2026.The catalog
  • The early layer is a lost local rite, known from Chromatius, the capitulary and Paulinus, with North-Italian and Milanese affinities; the late-medieval Patriarchine books are Roman-type books with a proper use — sanctoral, sequences, rubrics, Holy Week customs — closer in kind to Sarum than to the Ambrosian.25The witnesses

The Index keeps the catalog's typing as a rite, and says in plain words which layer it describes at each point: the early layer is the rite, the Patriarchine books are its late, Roman-type phase.

Roman or Exarchate in origin?
  • The rite was successively Leonine, Gelasian and Gregorian — basically Roman; the older writers thought it close to the Roman.5De Rubeis, as reported by Cabrol
  • The 'Exarchate' thesis: a liturgy of Ravenna/Aquileia with implications for the origins of the Roman canon — influential and disputed.12Baumstark (1904)

The Index reports both, and the Milanese parallels in the capitulary, without settling the origin question.

How long did it survive?
  • Which records that the metropolitan church of Aquileia formerly had its own breviary, missal and rites — prior abandonment, presented as a record, not necessarily as the act of suppression.5The 1596 synod
  • Como's synodal statutes of 1565 and 1579 still require the church's own rites; the 1579 visitation criticises the Patriarchine breviary; the final abandonment of 1597–98 is secondarily reported.5The Como evidence

Quo primum (1570) qualified the Aquileian and Como uses and let them continue; they adopted the Roman books themselves. The oral canto patriarchino lasted into the 20th c. as a sung tradition, not a rite.1315

Go Deeper

The Aquileian entry is the Index's hardest test of the rite/use distinction, and the catalog's decision — it stays a rite — is honoured by being explicit about the two layers.5 The early layer is lost: Chromatius's sermons, a capitulary, Paulinus's hymns, and the Milanese parallels in the margins.12 The late layer is printed, dated, and catalogued to the day — 5 August 1517, 15 September 1519 — and it is Roman-type.37 Between them lies the whole question of what a "rite" is: whether a name can cover both a lost late-antique liturgy and a set of sixteenth-century Roman-type books. The Index's answer is the entry itself — two layers, plainly labelled, with the 1596 synod's quiet past tense ("had formerly… its own missal and rites") as the epitaph of the second.5

## Sources

  • Cabrol, Fernand, "Aquilée (Liturgie)", DACL t. I.2, cols 2683/2684–2691 (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1907) — the best short classic account.
  • Missale Aquileyensis Ecclesie cum omnibus requisitis… (Venice: Peter Liechtenstein, 5 August 1517) — the edition of the modern facsimile.
  • Missale Aquileyensis Ecclesie (1517), ed. Peressotti, presentation by Sodi (Città del Vaticano: LEV; Udine: Istituto Pio Paschini, 2007) — the modern scholarly facsimile.
  • Missale iuxta ritum alme Aquileyensis ecclesie (Augsburg: Johann Oswalt, 1508) and Missale Aquileyensis Ecclesie… (Venice: Gregorius de Gregoriis, 15 September 1519) — the other secure editions.
  • Breviarium secundum usum Aquileie (Venice: Andrea Torresani, 29 July 1496).
  • Morin, Germain, "L'année liturgique à Aquilée antérieurement à l'époque carolingienne d'après le Codex Evangeliorum Rehdigeranus", Revue bénédictine 19 (1902), 1–12 — the pre-Carolingian year.
  • Étaix, R., & J. Lemarié (eds), Chromatii Aquileiensis opera, CCSL 9A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1974) — the late-4th/5th-c. witness.
  • Pressacco, Gilberto, Tropi, prosule e sequenze del messale aquileiese (Udine: Deputazione di storia patria per il Friuli, 1995) — the sequentiary.
  • Peressotti, Giuseppe (ed.), Fonti eucologiche aquileiesi (Rome: Città Nuova, 2006) — the prayer texts.
  • Gerardi, Renzo, La liturgia aquileiese patriarchina (Rome: Lateran University Press, 1987) — the short synthesis.
  • Baumstark, Anton, Liturgia romana e liturgia dell'Esarcato (Rome: F. Pustet, 1904) — the disputed Exarchate thesis.
  • Diclich, Giovanni, Rito veneto antico detto patriarchino (Venice: V. Rizzi, 1823) — the distinct St Mark's use.
  • Barzan, Paola, & Anna Vildera (eds), Il canto "patriarchino" di tradizione orale (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 2000) — the oral survival.
  • Quo primum (1570) — which qualified, not abolished, the Aquileian and Como uses.

On Domus Dei

Official resources

Recommended reading

  • Cabrol, Fernand, “Aquilée (Liturgie)”, Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, t. I.2, Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1907.The best short classic account, free.
  • Peressotti, Giuseppe (ed.); presentation by Manlio Sodi, Missale Aquileyensis Ecclesie (1517), edizione anastatica, Città del Vaticano / Udine: LEV / Istituto Pio Paschini, 2007.The modern facsimile; Peressotti's introduction is the best entry to the printed missal.
  • Morin, Germain, “L'année liturgique à Aquilée antérieurement à l'époque carolingienne d'après le Codex Evangeliorum Rehdigeranus”, Revue bénédictine 19 (1902), 1-12, 1902.The pre-Carolingian year, free.
  • Barzan, Paola, and Anna Vildera (eds), Il canto 'patriarchino' di tradizione orale in area istriana e veneto-friulana, Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 2000.For what did and did not survive.

Sources

  1. Primary textÉtaix, R., and J. Lemarié (eds), Chromatii Aquileiensis opera, Turnhout: Brepols, 1974.Verified 2026-09-14 · Catalogued (citation): Open Library OL4836248M (CCSL 9A). Chromatius's sermons, the primary witness to late-4th/5th-c. Aquileian liturgy (baptism, feasts). Not opened
  2. ScholarshipMorin, Germain, “L'année liturgique à Aquilée antérieurement à l'époque carolingienne d'après le Codex Evangeliorum Rehdigeranus”, Revue bénédictine 19 (1902), 1-12, 1902.Verified 2026-09-14 · Seen (review): 'd'après le CODEX EVANGELIORUM REHDIGERANUS' on p. 1. The pre-Carolingian Aquileian year, with Milanese affinities: no Septuagesima, and a short pre-Lent
  3. Primary textMissale Aquileyensis Ecclesie cum omnibus requisitis…, Venice: Peter Liechtenstein, 1517.Verified 2026-09-14 · Catalogued (citation): OPAC SBN/EDIT16 (5 August 1517). Not opened
  4. Primary textBreviarium secundum usum Aquileie, Venice: Andrea Torresani, 1496.Verified 2026-09-14 · Catalogued (citation): OPAC SBN (29 July 1496). Not opened
  5. ScholarshipCabrol, Fernand, “Aquilée (Liturgie)”, Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, t. I.2, Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1907.Verified 2026-09-14 · Seen (review): cols 2683/2684-2691, signed 'F. CABROL.' The best short classic account: the rite of the patriarchate; it quotes the 1596 Aquileia and the Como texts and reprints the capitulary; it reports that older writers (De Rubeis, Bona, Le Brun) thought the rite close to the Roman
  6. Primary textMissale iuxta ritum alme Aquileyensis ecclesie, Augsburg: Johann Oswalt (printed at Venice by Lucantonio Giunta), 1508.Verified 2026-09-14 · Catalogued (citation): OPAC SBN/EDIT16 (IT\ICCU\CNCE\002269). Not opened
  7. Primary textMissale Aquileyensis Ecclesie…, Venice: Gregorius de Gregoriis, 1519.Verified 2026-09-14 · Catalogued (citation): OPAC SBN/EDIT16 (15 September 1519); Brussels facsimile (Culture et Civilisation, 1963). Not opened
  8. Primary textPeressotti, Giuseppe (ed.); presentation by Manlio Sodi, Missale Aquileyensis Ecclesie (1517), edizione anastatica, Città del Vaticano / Udine: LEV / Istituto Pio Paschini, 2007.Verified 2026-09-14 · Catalogued (citation): Open Library OL48020750M (Monumenta Studia Instrumenta Liturgica 48). The modern scholarly facsimile reproduces the 1517 Liechtenstein edition, not the 1519 one; Peressotti's introduction is the best entry to the printed missal. Not opened
  9. ScholarshipPressacco, Gilberto, Tropi, prosule e sequenze del messale aquileiese: un primo censimento, Udine: Deputazione di storia patria per il Friuli, 1995.Verified 2026-09-14 · Catalogued (citation): Open Library OL59880253M. The proper sequentiary and tropes of the printed missal. Not opened
  10. Primary textPeressotti, Giuseppe (ed.), Fonti eucologiche aquileiesi, Rome: Città Nuova, 2006.Verified 2026-09-14 · Catalogued (citation): Open Library OL53064757M (Scrittori della Chiesa di Aquileia 11). A collected edition of Aquileian prayer texts. Not opened
  11. ScholarshipGerardi, Renzo, La liturgia aquileiese patriarchina, Rome: Lateran University Press, 1987.Verified 2026-09-14 · Catalogued (citation): SBN VEA\0076515 (offprint from Lateranum 53 (1987) no. 1; 73 pp.). Not opened
  12. ScholarshipBaumstark, Anton, Liturgia romana e liturgia dell'Esarcato: il rito detto in seguito patriarchino e le origini del Canon missae romano, Rome: F. Pustet, 1904.Verified 2026-09-14 · Catalogued (citation): archive.org metadata. The 'Exarchate' thesis linking the patriarchine rite to Ravenna/Aquileia and to the origins of the Roman canon; influential and disputed. Not opened
  13. Magisterial / canonicalPius V, Quo primum (bull promulgating the Roman Missal), 1570. LinkVerified 2026-09-15 · Latin read in the front matter of the 1962 editio typica (archive.org sp07mr62-editio-typica, page images pp. [V]-VI) and of an 1862 Missal: 'nisi ab ipsa prima institutione a Sede Apostolica approbata, vel consuetudine, quae, vel ipsa institutio super ducentos annos … assidue observata sit'; dated 'pridie idus iulii' 1570; the Council of Trent's decrees had left the Missal to the pope: 'inter alia Sacri Tridentini Concilii decreta, nobis statuendum esset de sacris libris, Catechismo, Missali, et Breviario edendis, atque emendandis' (1862 front matter)
  14. Primary textDiclich, Giovanni, Rito veneto antico detto patriarchino, Venice: V. Rizzi, 1823.Verified 2026-09-14 · Catalogued (citation): SBN VIAE\013678. The Venetian ducal-chapel use of St Mark's — a distinct use, not to be conflated with the Aquileian patriarchine. Not opened
  15. ScholarshipBarzan, Paola, and Anna Vildera (eds), Il canto 'patriarchino' di tradizione orale in area istriana e veneto-friulana, Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 2000.Verified 2026-09-14 · Catalogued (citation): Open Library OL31526919M (Cultura popolare veneta, n.s. 17). The folk-liturgical 'canto patriarchino' sung in Istrian and Friulian parishes into the 20th c. Not opened
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