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Emilia-Romagna
Emilia-Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. It forms a rough triangle, bounded on the East by the Adriatic Sea, on the North by the Po river and on the South by the Appennine range; these two linear features, with the Via Aemilia, and the A1 highway and the railway that run close and parallel to it, give an unusually regular structure to the whole region except for the easternmost part.
Emilia-Romagna is divided into nine provinces:
Like most Italian regions, Emilia-Romagna reaches to its past, suggesting the presence in the region of peoples like the Etruscans, who founded Felsina (Bologna) as their capital and the Gauls, The Romans came next and founded their first colony, Ariminum (Rimini) in 268 BCE, then Mutina (Modena), Parma and, changing its name, developed further Bononia (Bologna). With the fall of the Roman Empire, these towns went into decline, Only Ravenna, becoming the capital of the West, flourished, first under the Goths, then under Byzantium, whose splendid mosaics still remain in the city’s magnificent basilicas. In the Middle Ages, the region had a rebirth. The University of Bologna (the Alma Mater Studiorum) was founded in 1088, originally run by its students and specializing in jurisprudence (law). The medical and theological faculties and courses in the liberal arts were added in the 14th century. The university acquired such a reputation, that students from other regions of Italy and from the rest of Europe flocked to it. Medieval Bologna was one of the truly great centers of learning in Europe. The university’s reputation earned for the city the nickname of Bologna la Dotta. It continued its tradition in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the anatomists Malpighi and Galvani, taught there. In the original heritage of Italian culture, poetry with Giosuč Carducci and Giovanni Pascoli and science with Guglielmo Marconi are part of the great pedagogical tradition of Bologna, which is still enjoying a very high reputation in the panorama of the European culture.
Bologna is the region’s capital but there are other centers in Emilia-Romagna with illustrious pasts. Parma, is the home to Antelami, the architect of its magnificent battistero and Correggio the painter. In the field of music, Verdi and Toscanini are well know internationally. Besides Ravenna, Ferrara of the Este family, was the cradle of culture and diplomacy. The poets Ludovico Ariosto and Torquato Tasso were in service at the court of Ferrara. The Regione Emilia-Romagna enjoyed and enjoys a multi-cultural reality which defines an inestimable patrimony of artistic and scientific achievements.
