Prehistory and antiquity
Before the Romans took control of present-day Emilia-Romagna, it had been part of the Etruscan world and subsequently that of the Gauls. During the first thousand years of Christianity, trade flourished, as did culture and religion, thanks to the region’s numerous monasteries.
Early origins
The history of Emilia-Romagna dates back to Roman times when the region of Emilia was ruled by imperial judges linked to the nearby regions of either Liguria or Tuscany. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, the Lombards, a Germanic tribe, founded the kingdom of Lombardy in northern and central Italy. This kingdom, which included the region known as Emilia, flourished until the Lombard dynasty was overthrown by the Frankish king Charlemagne in 774. From the 6th to 8th centuries, the region of Romagna was under Byzantine rule and Ravenna was the capital of the Exarchate of Italy within the Eastern Roman Empire. In the 8th century, this region became a province of the Papal States when Pepin, the father of Charlemagne, donated the land to the Pope in 754.
Middle Ages to early modern period
During the 10th century, northern Italy became part of the Holy Roman Empire under the control of the Germanic leader Otto I. The Holy Roman emperors had varying degrees of control over northern Italy until the close of the Middle Ages. In the 12th century, the papacy extended its political influence and city states began to form in opposition to the Holy Roman emperors.
The northern cities, supported by the Pope, formed the Lombard League and reduced the influence of the ruling Hohenstaufen dynasty over their lands. Division between imperial partisans and their opponents created factions called the Guelphs and the Ghibelines which would divide the cities for centuries. For the next few centuries both Emilia and Romagna were ruled by papal legates or representatives of the Pope.
The University of Bologna—the oldest university in the world, established in AD 1088—and its bustling towns kept trade and intellectual life alive. Local nobility like the Este of Ferrara, the Malatesta of Rimini, the Popes of Rome, the Farnese of Parma and Piacenza, and the Duchy of Modena and Reggio, jostled for power and influence.
The House of Este gained a notable profile for its political and military might and its patronage of the arts: it left behind a vast heritage of splendid Renaissance palaces, precious paintings and literary masterpieces, such as the works of Ludovico Ariosto, Torquato Tasso and Matteo Maria Boiardo.
Following the rise of Napoleon, the region of Emilia came under French control.[15] After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, there was a growing movement for Italian national unity and independence. In 1848, a revolution in Vienna initiated uprisings against Austrian rule. The following decades saw uprisings in several regions and, in 1861, the Kingdom of Italy was established. During this Italian Unification, the territories of Emilia and Romagna would be incorporated into the new nation.
Late modern and contemporary
In the 16th century, most of what would become Emilia-Romagna had been seized by the Papal States, but the territories of Parma, Piacenza, and Modena remained independent until Emilia-Romagna became part of the Italian kingdom between 1859 and 1861.
After the First world war, Emilia-Romagna was at the centre of the so-called Biennio Rosso, a period of left-wing agitations that paved the way for Benito Mussolini’s coup d’état in 1922 and the birth of the Fascist regime in Italy. Mussolini, a native of Emilia-Romagna, sponsored the rise of many hierarchs coming from his same region, such as Italo Balbo, Dino Grandi and Edmondo Rossoni.
Towards the end of the Second World War, Emilia-Romagna was occupied by Germany and has been the theatre of numerous Nazi war crimes, such as the Marzabotto massacre in which 770 innocent civilians were brutally executed by German troops.
