Emilia-Romagna Region, Italy

Inhabited since very ancient times as revealed from archeological findings, the region was occupied by the Etruscans in the 6th century BC. In the 4th century it was then invaded by the Celts, then in the third the Romans conquered it, joining its territory to Liguria. Augustus gave it the name of Aemilia, as the Octava Regio (8th region) of the Empire. With the decadence of the Roman empire, in 402 AD Emperor Onorius moved the capital from Rome to Ravenna, calling the Eastern side of the region Romania and making it into the political center of the Western Roman Empire in the last decades of its existence.

The Lombard invaders conquered only part of the region, more or less the area of Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Reggio, while Ravenna and Bologna stayed under the jurisdiction of the surviving Eastern Roman Empire, whose capital was Byzanthium. With the coming of the Franks the region was entrusted to the Pope, to be politically included in the State of the Church in the early 11th century.

When the municipal life started to rise again, in the late Middle Ages (13th - 14th centuries) such towns as Bologna, Piacenza, Modena and Reggio enjoyed a remarkable prosperity, also due to the strategic position of the region among the many Italian States of the time and to powerful families, such as the Farnese and Estensi. After being for centuries a constellation of Dukedoms and States, the region was finally united to the newborn Kingdom of Italy in 1860.