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 , early Christian Monuments of
Ravenna 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.
High 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 Ghibellines 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. , founded in 1088, is the
world's oldest university in continuous operation. 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. in
FerraraThe
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. , which was the first
Italian tricolour adopted by a sovereign Italian state (1797) Following the rise of
Napoleon, the region of Emilia came under French control. The first red, white and green national flag of a sovereign Italian state was adopted on 7 January 1797, when the Fourteenth Parliament of the
Cispadane Republic (1797), on the proposal of deputy
Giuseppe Compagnoni, decreed "to make universal the ... standard or flag of three colours, green, white, and red ...": For having proposed the green, white and red tricolour flag, Giuseppe Compagnoni is considered the "father of the
Italian flag". 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. During the
Cold war era, Bologna, traditionally a
left-wing city, was particularly hit by political street violence and
terrorism; in 1980 a
far-right terrorist group
detonated a bomb at the city's main railway station, killing 85 people and wounding more than 200. After the referendum of 2006, seven municipalities of
Montefeltro were detached from the
Province of Pesaro and Urbino (
Marche) to join that of
Rimini on 15 August 2009. The municipalities are
Casteldelci,
Maiolo,
Novafeltria,
Pennabilli,
San Leo,
Sant'Agata Feltria and
Talamello. On 20 and 29 May 2012 two
powerful earthquakes struck the central area of the region, killing 27 people and causing substantial damages to the region's artistic heritage as well as to numerous manufacturing facilities. The 5.8 magnitude earthquake left 14,000 people temporarily homeless. == Geography ==