HISTORY]
Piazza Galvani with view next to the back side of the Church of San Petronio.
City Hall of Bologna
Via Farini Arcade Bologna
Arcade Bologna Via Farini on the opposite part of Piazza Galvani
History of Bologna
Chronological history of Bologna
9th century b.C.
Development of the Villanovan civilization
550 b.C.
Birth of the first nucleus of the city of Felsinea by the Etruscan
350 b.C.
The Boi Guals, after the period of semi-nomadism, settle themselves in the area of Felsinea, which starts to be called Bononia
289 b.C.
The Roman starts to branch out in the Pianura Padana
189 b.C.
The Gauls, defeated by the Romans, leave the territory and go at the edge of the woods, while Bononia starts to assume the tipical urban roman structure (with cardos and decumanus)
44 b.C.
Bologna is involved in the civil wars which will brought about the crisis of the Romanic Republic. Bologna
Gaio Giulio Cesare Ottaviano, Marco Antonio e Marco Emilio Lepido create the Second triumvirate in a small island on Reno river.
53 b.C.
Bologna is almost completed destroyed by a fire.
3rd century
Building of the first selenite circle of walls
313
Beginning of the ecclesiastic activity in Bologna; St. Zama is the first bishop
410 - 452
Incursions of the Attila's Huns
568 – 643
The Lombard settle along the river Panaro, which becomes the border between the Longobardia and the Romania: Bononia becomes a borderline town.
727 - 773
The Lombard conquer the city. They don't modify in a drastic the structure of the city .
774
Carlo Magno overcome the Lombard and give back Bononia to the Papal State
890 - 940
Incursions of the Hungarians
11th century
Great development of the city, thanks to the good relationships with the emperor Berengario and the constitution of the Studium, which attracts many students. Bologna starts to have communal ambitions.
12th century
Construction of the second circle of walls of the Torresotti
1115
Death of Matilde di Canossa. Bononia moves from the jurisdiction of the archibishop of Ravenna to the one of the Emperor. A riot breaks out in the city.
1158
Federico Barbarossa issues the Authentica Habita to help the students and the professors of the Studium Bolognese (protecting it as a research and study institution and making it independent from any other power)
1202 - 1219
The Common of Bologna buys the land on which will rise Piazza Maggiore and the City Hall
1249
After bloody fights between the Lombard League and the Empire, Bologna defeats Federico II of the Holy Roman Empire in Fossalta, making Federico's son Enzo prisoner till his death in 1271
1256
Bologna promulgats a law, contained in the so-called Liber Paradisus, which proclaims the liberation of about 6000 slaves (redeeming them with public money): it is the first common to approve the liberation of the serfs.
1271
The anti-magnate legislation obliges many nobles to become middle-class to invest in the trade and in the industry.
1278
Fights between the Ghibellini and the Guelfi, which overcome the first submitting the city to the power of pope Niccolò III.
1325
Bologna is defeated by the Modeneses in the battle of Zappolino.
1327 - 1390
The control of the city changes continuously, from the Cardinal Bertrando of the Poggetto to Taddeo Pepoli. From Giovanni Visconti to the Papacy and finally still autonomously.
1348
The Black Death kills many people.
1374
The third and last circle of walls is completed.
1390
Beginning of the construction of the Basilica of San Petronio.
1401 - 1447
The control of the city changes again: from the Bentivoglio to the Visconti (after the battle of Casalecchio), to the Pope and again to the Bentivoglio until 1506.
1506
Pope Giulio II allied with Luigi XII gives back the control of the city to the Papacy. The government of the city is given to a Papal legate; the city becomes more prestigious and it becomes the capital of the Papal State.
1530
Carlo V is crowned emperor by Clemente VII in the Basilica of San Petronio.
1563 - 1574
Construction of the Archigimnasio of Bologna and the Fountain of Neptune.
XVII century
The economic crisis and a severe plague are counterbalanced by the development of arts (Carracci, Guido Reni, Guercino)
1735 - 1748
Many incursions of Spanish and Austrian troops.
1790 - 1794
Luigi Zamboni and his friend De Rolandis trie to instigate a riot against the Papal State, taking inspiration from the ideals of the French Revolution: the first dies suicide and the second executed, between the general indifference.
1796
the troops of Napoleone Bonaparte occupy the city: beginning of a period of great renovations.
1797
Birth of the Cispadana Republic. Bologna becomes the capital of the Reno Department.
1799 - 1800
The Austrian- Russians conquer Bologna but the French regain its control.
1814 - 1816
Bologna is occupied by the Austrians, then by the troops of Gioacchino Murat and finally again by the Austrian, whom leave Bologna under the control of the Papal State.
1831 - 1838
Many revolutionary movements declare Bologna independent from the Church, but the Austrian give back again the city to the troops of the Papal State.
1848
The 8 august the Bologneses defeat the Austrians near the Montagnola.
1849
The Austrian regain permanently the city on may the 30th . Ugo Bassi, captured in Comacchio on august the 2nd, arrives in the city on august the 7th in the evening and it gets shot by the Austrians.
1859 - 1860
Annexion to the Reign of Savoia. Livio Zambeccari founds the Working Class Society.
1882
The first socialist at the Camera is elected: Andrea Costa.
1889
New urban structure of the city: many demolitions changes the look of the city. Some towers and the third circle of towers are demolished in order to leave space to the urban expansion.
Only few people (namely Alfonso Rubbiani and Giosué Carducci) fight for the safeguard of the architectonic patrimony.
1914
Francesco Zanardi is the first socialist mayor of the city.
1919 - 1920
It is built the Fascio di combattimento Arditi del Popolo, which makes some fascist assaults at the Trade Union Centre and at D'accursio Palace.
1926
Anteo Zamboni tries to shoot Benito Mussolini when he was visiting bologna. He got lynched by a group of fascists.
1929
The earthquake of Bologna damages a part of the city and its province
1941 - 1945
During the Second World War the city is bombed 43 times. Bologna develops a strong movement of Resistance in the countryside and mountain areas. In revenge the Nazis commit the slaughter of marzabotto. The 21st of April 1945 is the day of the Liberation. Giuseppe Dozza is the first communist mayor
Sixties
Bologna becomes one of the Italian richest cities.
Seventies
Bologna is involved in 1968 protest and then, in 1977, in the University occupation and violent fights between the revolting students and the police. On March the 11th 1977 the student Francesco Lo russo got killed by the police. The next day the police burst into Radio Alice and it cuts the trasmissions. The ministry of the interior Francesco Cossiga sends the army in the university area.
1980
Massacre of Bologna: on august the 2nd a bomb explodes in the train station killing 85 people.
Eighties
After a period of yuppie optimism the city got more bourgeois.
Nineties
For the first time in the history of the city it is elected a right-wing mayor, named Giorgio Guazzaloca.
2000
Bologna is one of the richest and most important cities of Italy. It is an important industrial interchange center, due to its highway junction and to its closeness to the sea and to Ravenna.
In Bologna there are some of the biggest industrial group of Italy.
2004
The unionist Sergio Cofferati is the new mayor.
2011
The left-wing party is again at the power.
The birth of Bologna between reality and mythological history
There are various legends about the birth of Bologna. Some of them attribute its foundation to the Umbrian Ocnus, chased away from Umbria by the Etruscan Auleste, who founded a village where now stands Bologna, and then further driven by the Etruscans.
Another story talks about Felsina, a descendant of another Ocnus (but Etruscan also called Bianore, the legendary founder of Pianoro, Parma and Mantua, of which Virgil speaks), which gave the city its name, changed later by his son Bono in Bononia.
Maybe there is some truth in all these legends, but the most fascinating is definitely the one that tells of the Etruscan king Fero: coming from Ravenna and landed in the plain between the rivers and Aposa Ravone, Fero and his men began to build some huts in that unknown but dense of vegetation and great located land.
The village expanded around a river (the Aposa that today still flows in the basement of Bologna) and one day, in order to connect the two sides of the present Via Farini, near Piazza Minghetti, Fero built a bridge, Fero Bridge (sometimes mistakenly remembered as iron bridge, located at the today's Via Farini, at the height of Piazza Calderini). But one day Aposa, Fero's lover, was overwhelmed by a flood of the river as it was approaching the house of Fero passing through hidden streets and his body was never found. Since then the river took the name of that woman, Aposa.
The village grew and Fero decided to protect it with a wall, and although old, he worked himself to its construction. While working in a hot summer day Fero's daughter handed to his father a bowl of water as long as Fero would have given her name to the city. Fero agreed and kept his promise: from that time the city took the name of his daughter, Felsina.
The first settlements
Villanovians and Etruscans
The Bologna area has been inhabited since the ninth century BC, as shown by excavations carried out from mid-nineteenth century at nearby Villanova, a fraction of Castenaso, which together with Verucchio (inland from Rimini) was the first settlement of the Emilia-Romagna.
During this period, and up to the sixth century BC, the settlement belongs to the phase called Villanovian and it is scattered in various nucleous, which for obvious practical reasons are located between the river Idice and the river Reno: it was a more secure environment, away from the mountains and with a temperate climate.
The economy of agricultural and pastoral builds the first civil organization in the early Iron Age (1000-750 BC).
In the seventh-sixth century BC we have testimonies of the Etruscan civilization, which called the city Felsina (probably derived from the name Velzna, also attributed to other Etruscan places as Orvieto and Bolsena). In this age Bologna became an organized urban center and assumed an important role in the settlements of the Po Valley. It were undertaken profound building renovations and changes in the settlement, such as to take the city a regular system oriented north-south.
The houses became more complex and more similar to those found in Marzabotto and Etruria: larger building with rooms more coordinated set around courtyards and sheds with the outside.
It spread more widely the use of stone, to the detriment of perishable materials of the previous phase.
Felsina occupied an area slightly smaller than the one of Villanova villages but the city was still provided with a sacred area, Villa Cassarini [2] (on the hill where now there are the faculties of Engineering and Industrial Chemistry) and some necropolis (the most important found at Giardini Margherita).
Celtic Bononia
Following the descent of the Gauls on the Italian peninsula, between the fifth and fourth centuries BC, the Etruscans were outvoted and Felsina was gradually conquered by the Gallic tribe of the Boii.
Traces of fire and de-structuring that emerged from the archaeological excavations suggest a violent crisis of the Etruscan city. In Celtic times, while experiencing a lower density of dwellings, an organized buildings activity continued, although thinner and disorganized, with a less homogeneous distribution of housing, and employment in the revised guidelines previously open spaces [1].
Although defeated in 225 BC in the battle of Telamon, the Gauls kept enough power and independence to be a key ally of Hannibal in the Punic Wars. With the defeat of Carthage, the Roman reprisals led to the destruction of many villages as Gallic and Gallo-Etruscan Bibele Mount, where the Etruscans and Celts had developed a harmony not only in Gaul. The Gauls were finally defeated the Roman troops in 196 BC and then in 191 BC, [3] by Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, thus leading to the confiscation boicus ager and early Roman hegemony over the city.
Bononia Roman colony
Defeated the Boii, the Senate of the Roman Republic voted in 189 BC the establishment of the Roman colony of Bononia. The name, Latinized by the Romans, was perhaps taken from the name of the tribe itself (Boi) or from the Celtic word bona, which presumably meant "city" or "fortified place". The foundation of this and other colonies in the Emilia-Romagna followed the construction of a dense road network, including the Via Emilia, born in 187 BC, ordered by the consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. Bononia became one of the fulcrums of the Roman road network. It was also connected to Arezzo and Aquileia through the Via Flaminia minor and the Via Emilia Altinate respectively.
The center was greatly expanded and in 88 BC, at the conclusion of the social wars, Bononia changed its legal status: from colony became a municipality and its citizens acquired Roman citizenship.
Civil wars and the political crisis that stirred the middle of the first century BC in fact marked the end of the republic and gave up, with the death of Caesar, a series of acts of war, some of which took place in the town of Bononia. In an island of the river Rhine was born in 43 BC the second triumvirate of Antony, Lepidus and Octavian, who promised big rewards to veterans. Bononia had to accommodate a good number of veterans and they were assigned land abandoned following the social wars.
In the Augustan age Bononia enriched its urban structure with more than 10 km of stable road surfaces. At that time he also built the sewers but the most striking work was the aqueduct that carried the best water from the Setta stream near Sasso Marconi and led it, as it does today, on the outskirts of the city through a Casalecchio 18 km tunnel.
The water was then distributed to the city through a dense network of sites lead pipes under the floors of the road. The work took more than 6000 men and 12 years of work. In that period the public buildings were renewed with extensive use of marble as well as the private ones in which the use of mosaic spread over; the thermal baths, a theater and the arena started to be used and it were built the first textile factories. Bononia was built of brick, wood and especially selenite, and precisely because of that it was severely damaged by fire in 53 AD but was immediately rebuilt thanks to the interest of Nero, who, among other things, had it enlarged and embellished the theater. Since then, for three centuries, the life of the city did not record the facts of particular importance.
After the death of Alexander Severus in 235 began an irreversible decline caused by economic and political crises, and it is in this context that we note the first persecutions of Christians like that of Diocletian in 304. Nevertheless, in 313 - at the time of the Edict of Constantine – it was elected the first bishop, St. Zama.
The decline of the Roman Empire
At the end of the third century the barbarians swept across all cities crossed by the Via Emilia, which were a land of conquest and the Bolognese decided to close themselves within a circle of walls built with blocks of selenite which, however, did not contain the entire urban area but exclude the poorest neighborhoods north and west. The bishop of Milan, Ambrose, put four crosses in front of 4 of the 6 city gates: the Gate of Ravenna (eastward), Port St. Proculus (towards noon), Stiera Gate (towards West), Port St. Cassian and St. Peter (northward). The crosses were transferred to the Basilica of San Petronio only in 1798.
In 430 the Church of Bononia, until that time under the Church of Milan, came under the jurisdiction of the Church of Ravenna. In the same year, at the death of Felix, Petronius was appointed bishop, the fifth of Bologna, directly from Pope Celestine I and much later he was hired as the city's patron.
Petronius, who was born in Constantinople from a patrician family, organized the Church and civil society in Bologna and obtained the edict which expanded the jurisdiction of Bologna from the Panaro River to the Senio and the decree that guaranteed the city the privilege of the study of Roman law. Moreover, he ordered the building of the Holy Jerusalem, near the graves of revered saints Vitale and Agricola. It emerged the group of churches called the first martyr, namely the complex of Santo Stefano. Petronius died in 451.
A little later Attila and the Huns came down from the north as well as Odoacer, leader of the Heruli, which was directed at Ravenna, then the capital of the Empire, to lay the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustus. It was the year 476 which ended the long agony of the Roman Empire
From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance
The domain Lombard and the Unification of Italy
After the fall of the Roman Empire Bologna suffered a series of violence, first by the Ostrogoths of Theodoric, Odoacer, then by the imperial armies. Most of the old urban areas outside the walls became an immense field of ruins.
Bologna and all the Cispadana cities (except maybe Ravenna) suffered for centuries this period of anarchy. Liutprand in 727, King of the Lombards, taking advantage of the collapse of the Byzantine system, broke the peace treaty and headed for Ravenna overthrowing and occupying Ravenna Bologna. He did not that for political reasons, he left off to the other side of the river Santerno, leaving Ravenna to the employ of the Roman Empire, while Bologna remained under the dominion of the Lombards. They did not occupy the walled city but outside, where there were already present some Germanic populations, in the place where there was the old church dedicated to St. Stephen. The area was enclosed by a fortification called semicircular addition Lombard. The link between the two civilizations, indoor and outdoor Roman-Germanic Lombards, was in fact the Gate of Ravenna.
Bologna remained Lombard until 774, year in which Charlemagne returned to Pope Adrian I, namely to the Holy See with the Exarchate of Italy. After the demise of the Carolingian dynasty, in the late ninth century, Bologna was united to the Kingdom of Italy, officially 898 (King Berenger). Berengar I granted to the bishop and the Church of Bologna a ship port on the Rhine, at the market Piscariola Selva.
The economy of Bologna, however, was pure subsistence. The awakening of the city involved in the early ninth century, monasticism, and, in general, the religious life. It was in that time the transfer of the Episcopal See in the Cathedral of St. Peter and the development of the monasteries Ronzano, St. Victor and Santa Maria in Monte (now Villa Aldini).
The common and the University
Between the late tenth century and the beginning of the eleventh century, Bologna was repopulated, just as Europe was preparing to enter a period of great fervor, civil and political struggles for the investiture. Bologna was all the imperial city (under the authority of the accounts) as pope (for the rights of the Holy See back to Charlemagne). In the confused political situation, it was strong the powerful influence on the city of Countess Matilda of Canossa, sided with the Pope. During this period, Bologna changed significantly and outside the city walls were built several new buildings, new neighborhoods, and consequently new walls and new gates. But the struggle between the papacy and empire, as well as the demographic and economic development, also gave impetus to the study of law. In Bologna, at the end of the eleventh century, masters of grammar, rhetoric and logic began to study and rearrange the right Justinian legal foundation of the empire, and to teach students privately formed by young people from wealthy families, often noble. [ 4] Thus was born the Studium, then Universitas Scholarium, or the University (dated after 1088 by a commission chaired by Carducci), which will be for ever the greater glory of the city and the most efficient vehicle of its reputation in Europe, from which the name Bologna the learned. The first teachers of which they were news Pepo (Pepone) and Warner (Irnerio). [4] The rush of Italian and foreign (especially German) students accompanied the economic revival and political and cultural growth.
The investiture struggle ended with the death of Countess Matilda in 1115. The people of Bologna rebelled and destroyed the imperial fortress (of which only the name remains in the Via Porta di Castello), but were pardoned by the Emperor Henry V who granted the following year a series of legal and economic concessions, [5] with a Diploma Governolo signed May 15 between the Imperial Chancellor and Irnerio Burchard himself at the head of a delegation of ten Bologna. [6] [7]
From this act is conventionally traced the source of the organism that will be called City [7] (although the consuls are already mentioned from 970), initially composed of aristocratic components, in particular lawyers.
The struggles against the imperial authority
The town took part in the fight against Barbarossa, descended into Italy to restore the imperial authority. After a period of good relations in which the emperor granted privileges to students with the Edict of Roncaglia, the intolerance of citizens led to a series of intractable shock that forced the city of Bologna to an act of submission: he paid a fine paving walls and ditches to avoid a likely more severe punishment. As soon as the Barbarossa returned to Germany, however, rose by killing the mayor of Bologna and joined the imperial Bezo the Lombard League in 1176, which inflicted the defeat of Legnano emperor.
Subsequently, following the Treaty of Constance in 1183, Bologna won a number of privileges including the right to be able to mint coins. The City began a democratic process that accentuated the pressure of new emerging classes against the old aristocracy of feudal origin. This process led to an example of the first acts in the history of the abolition of slavery (Liber Paradisus, 1256). Bologna was the city that benefited from the struggles between the more common and tended to expand towards Modena, Romagna and to Pistoia with the consequence of turning age-old rivalries.
It experienced a strong growth, even construction, was the period of the towers and tower-houses (the tower Asinelli was begun in 1109). He became a major center for trade through channels that allow the transit of large quantities of goods. At the end of the thirteenth century, with its 60,000 inhabitants Bologna was the fifth European city by population (after Cordoba, Paris, Venice and Florence), on a par with Milan and was the largest textile industrial center of Italy. Wedid not have much news about that, but there was also a Jewish community, since, at the end of the thirteenth century, it was called to visit, where he lived from Forlì, the famous Rabbi Hillel of Verona.
Bologna was endowed with a complex water supply system, consisting of a developed network of channels among the most advanced in Europe, fueled primarily by streams Savena Aposa and by the Rhine river. The channels were exploited, among other things, to produce energy plumbing in order to feed the many mills for silk textile industry and the transportation of goods. Channels of Bologna (now almost all underground) traces remain today in place names
The most productive classes impressed an antiaristocratic turning point in politics, and the municipality, strengthened, revived against the Emperor Frederick II. He joined the Lombard League and the second May 25, 1249 at the Battle of Fossalta, the Bologneses defeated the imperial forces captured Enzo, son of the Emperor and King of Sardinia. He was held prisoner until his death in 1272.
Guelfs and Ghibellines
In the thirteenth century there was a period of intense population growth, witnessed by the expansion of the city walls: just finished the circle of torresotti, the urban sprawl, mainly attributable to the class of craftsmen made it necessary the building of a second wall call ridge, built in the early decades of the thirteenth century, still marked by today's boulevards. Bologna had become at that time one of the European largest cities. The center was renewed with the building of municipal buildings around the Piazza Maggiore and the construction of the tower of the Arengo, where there was the bell that was used to summon the popular assemblies. Were also built the great churches of San Francesco and San Domenico.
Bologna imposed harsh conditions to Modena and forced some cities of Romagna to acknowledge its supremacy. The thrust, however, soon ran out because the city of Bologna was involved in the struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines, or factions of the two Lambertazzi (Ghibellines) and Geremei (Guelph). The latter prevailed in the municipal government, but the struggles had mixed fortunes: a part the capture of King Enzo son of the Emperor in 1249 after the battle of Fossalta, there was an attempt by the Guelphs Bologna to attack the Ghibellines Forli. The attempt failed and the troops Ghibelline of Guido da Montefeltro, Maghinardo Pagani and Teodorico Ordelaffi, put the Bologneses to flight at the Senio River, the bridge of San Proculus. The route was so severe that the Carroccio of Bologna was carried in triumph at Forli.
The Guelph government was sworn in and loyalty to Pope Nicholas III, who from that moment became ruler of Bologna. However, in the fourteenth century, the ongoing struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines led to a falling of the population and a series of uprisings against the Papal States also put in Bologna, during the second half of the century, the conditions for a political revival of the municipal government: in 1337 began the rule of Pepoli, described by some scholars as a crypto-worship as the family tries to govern itself as the first peer rather than as a true lords of the city. The rule has strong elements of continuity with the past, and will stand until March 28, 1401.
The bourgeoisie was able to oust from power the leaders of the great aristocratic families and entrusted Giovanni da Legnano to the office of papal representative in the city. The establishment of the regime that it was said of the people and the arts led to good effect in Bologna and at that time was built the Palace of the Merchandise and the Notary.
In 1390 began the construction of the Basilica of San Petronio.
The Bentivoglio
In 1401 the Bentivoglio family emerged to dominate the political life of Bologna throughout the fifteenth century. Bologna was subject to papal sovereignty but at the same time, the possession of the city was a primary goal of the Visconti family of Milan; the balance between the various Italian states created the conditions for promoting a stable and lasting affirmation of Bentivoglio. In 1461, when the political legacy of the family went to the young Giovanni II Bentivoglio, they were able to create a de facto semi-independent dominion over the city even if the sovereign was always the Pope
The annexation of the Papal States and the Renaissance
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, when an agreement signed by Pope Julius II and King Louis XII of France led to the removal from the city and the subsequent exile of Giovanni II Bentivoglio, Bologna opened for a long period of political stasis in which the Church remained for three centuries unchallenged mistress of the city holding a joint system of monarchy and aristocratic oligarchy with a senate of 40 members.
The only significant historic events of that time took place February 24, 1530 in the Basilica of San Petronio, where Charles V was crowned emperor by Pope Clement VII and in 1547 when there was the translation of the Council of Trent to Bologna for the duration a few months. However, Internally, however, there were repeated clashes between the Senate and the papal power, and in 1585 Pope Sixtus V had Senator John Pepoli executed giving a lecture at the unruly nobles of Bologna and expanding the Senate to fifty members.
The University maintained its reputation throughout the sixteenth century, linked to the presence of distinguished professors of law, medicine, philosophy, mathematics and natural sciences; in 1563 it was built the Archiginnasio as the unique seat of the University teaching.
It is also worth to remember the cultural institution of the Accademia Filarmonica (1666). In 1564 was inaugurated the square of Neptune and between 1565 and 1568 Vignola settled the eastern side of Piazza Maggiore, with the facade of the Palazzo dei Banchi.
The fifty senatorial families raised, in turn, their buildings that were visible image of the status of the power of the House. Among the public works should be mentioned the opening of the Piazza Galvani (1563), the new port channel Navile (1581) and the opening of Via Urbana (1630).
The increasing demography,from 50000 to 72000 units in a century, shows a satisfactory trend of traditional industries in Bologna. But towards the end of the sixteenth century, the latter began to enter the crisis due to the foreign competition and in 1595 Bologna was reduced to less than 60000 inhabitants. The economic recovery was later struck down by natural disasters and epidemics that reduced the population at 46000 inhabitants in 1630.
The city turned slowly while the Study began its decline but did not touch the art, where Bologna reached a position of absolute importance in painting with the Carracci, Guido Reni, Guercino and their flourishing schools. It was also created a school of painters, designers and architects who purchased, with Bibiena Ferdinand and his son Antonio, a reputation as a European level.
The Age of Enlightenment and the Napoleonic era
After the mid-seventeenth century there was a renewed interest in the physical sciences and the influence of rationalism and philosophical mathematician. The glorious study was cut off from modern science subjects and at the end of the century Count Luigi Ferdinando Marsili, convinced that the educational institution was not reformed, founded, against the will of the Senate but with the support of Cardinal Casoni and of Pope Clement XI, the Institute of Sciences.
The bolognese Lambertini (later Pope Benedict XIV), a man of great culture, relaunched the studies of history and lore, encouraged by gifts of Sciences Institute of scientific material in its library and encouraged art and science in different ways.
Later the greater diffusion of Enlightenment ideas also infected the papal court. The action of Pope Pius VI had a great effect for Bologna in 1780 when Cardinal Boncompagni published a series of economic reforms aimed at re-balancing of public finances. In 1785, however, Boncompagni left the legation of Bologna reforms are stalled in 1796 when the city was occupied by the French. On June 19, Napoleon arrived in Bologna and the papal government deposed by returning to Bologna the substance of his old government.
The temporary powers were thus concentrated in the Senate, which, however had to swear allegiance to the Cisalpine Republic. With this political move, Napoleon gained the favor of the aristocracy Bologna and Bologna was oriented in the direction (as opposed to Roman) of social and cultural renewal of secular and bourgeois.
After the nineteenth century
The first half of the nineteenth century
Napoleon's policy did provide for a climate of expectations towards the new changes in society, and because of this was erected in Piazza Maggiore, the tree of freedom while a group of distinguished jurists from Bologna began to prepare the text of a Constitution that was finally approved December 4, 1796, the first democratic constitution of what will be Italy.
In the following years, after providing for the suppression of religious orders and the confiscation of their property, the seventy monasteries were transformed into these offices, schools, barracks or sold to individuals.
Among the major changes there was the one of the Carthusian monks' convent which became the cemetery of Bologna (the Certosa Cemetery of Bologna) and the purchase by Antonio Aldini of the convent of the Friars of the Observance, on the hill of Bologna. Aldini built a villa over the ruin of the complex leaving only the Rotunda of Our Lady of Mount incorporated in the dining room. During the same period the architect Giovan Battista Jacks gave the Montagnola park its present form as a small hill of rubble walls of Galliera.
They were also founded the musical high school, the Academy of Fine Arts, the Corso Theatre and the Contavalli Theatre (both now gone, the first because of the war, the second for negligence), the Arena of the Sun and it was finished the arcade that leads to the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca.
The Restoration negatively influenced the intellectual activity and feeding only the conspiratorial actions of the sects, in particular that of the Guelphs Carbonaro group. They had already supported the idea of a united Italy, but it was not until the Risorgimento spontaneous rebellion of 1831 (which spread in all the Italian provinces united in Bologna was the capital) and especially the one of the 8 August 1848 against the Austrians, that they gained a wide membership of citizenship.
It seems that the battle was triggered by an accident (in a restaurant an Austrian officer had been beaten) and Welden took advantage of ordering the entrance to town. Many common people participated in the revolt, including the porters on the Borgo di San Pietro, and armed citizens in a rough, this was centered on the Montagnola and square, which is since then will be called Piazza VIII Agosto. The Austrians lost over four hundred men and the Bolognese about sixty. Bologna earned the Medal of the Cities deserving of national revival.
In political life, however, the moderate currents prevailed, and when the proclamation of the Roman Republic deposed the temporal power of the Church the citizenship participated marginally proving that they didn't want to raise a rebellious attitude against it.
Bologna will be returned permanently to the Holy See in the summer of 1849 and the first papal legate, was Cardinal Gaetano Bedini, who will remain in this position until 1852. In this period came the tragic episode of Barnabite priest Ugo Bassi. Captured in Comacchio, together with his friend Giovanni Livraghi, and moved to Bologna on the evening of August 7 was shot very quickly the August 8, 1849 by the Austrians.
Many complain the patriots Bedini and Pius IX, who had not wanted to do something to save him, even though historically it is now established that given the rapidity with which the Austrians captured and shot Holland, this was done without the knowledge of Cardinal Bedini and Pius IX.
Years later, in fact, the Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia Marco Minghetti wrote to Count Giuseppe Pasolini that the Bedini's intervention at the General Gorzkowski would have been useless because the papal legate counted "as a boot". The fact is that Bedini soon got tired of the Austrians invasiveness, and he expressed (tentatively at the beginning and then with more strength) his disapproval of the actions of the occupation forces. In 1852 the Holy See, however, preferred to relieve him of the post of Cardinal.
The Unification of Italy and the expansion of the city
Achieved the unification of Italy with the revolutionary action of 1859 in which in the end prevailed the moderates, whom put Bologna in the constitutional monarchy of the Kingdom of Sardinia and with the referendum of 1860 a new political and economic process was opened. In 1861 was finished the route Bologna-Ancona and in 1864 the connection with Pistoia. The city became an important node in the Italian railway and therefore a significant center of import and export trade.
In the urban fabric, it was realized Via Indipendenza, which was completed in 1890, and works were undertaken in the current Via Farini and Via Garibaldi. It was the beginning of the settlement of the Giardini Margherita, it was built the current home of the Teatro Duse, the Bank of Italy, and completed the one of the Savings Bank.
In 1881 the town drew up the expansion plan of the city that influenced the development of Bologna until after the Second World War. The expansion dramatically changed the city's image and the extension beyond the walls provide for the abatement of the wall itself.. Only the continuation of the work until 1920 allowed him to save almost all ports except for Porta Sant'Isaia and Porta St. Mamolo that were demolished. Alfonso Rubbiani and Carducci helped to save the current image of the old town and the ancient city gates.
Later it were restored the Palazzo del Comune, Palazzo Re Enzo, Palazzo del Podestà Palace of the Notaries and besides the church of Santa Maria dei Servi and the Basilica of San Francesco. The series of measures that Alfonso Rubbiani and others performed in an attempt to recover the original medieval features occurred, however, in most cases, based on documentary or even free invention.
The commotions of the late nineteenth century
Since the early unification of Italy, the ruling class was faced with the problem of the emancipation of the working classes and the workers' grievances, addressed to Mazzinians and excluded until that time from political representation. On the wave of the first strikes and riots that erupted in the spring of 1870 against high prices and which had its epicenter in Romagna, it was planned a social revolution: the conspiracy included the peasant and worker occupation of Bologna with three thousand revolutionaries from Romagna, whom had to join the Bolognese in two points outside the city.
The police, alerted by a tip-off, arrested in August the 2nd Andrea Costa, organizer of the movement, pupil of the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. The insurgency continued in the same night between the 7th and 8th August when the anarchists met up to the Prati di Caprara to wait their companions from Romagna. Nevertheless the wait was futile because they were surprised and scattered along the road from Imola to Bologna by the police.
The anarchists were indicted in March the 15th 1876 but the trial ended on June 16 with the acquittal (or with mild sentences) all the defendants thanks to the testimonies of Carducci and Aurelio Saffi.
The Giolitti era and the fascist age
Towards the end of the century, the Catholics began the collaboration with the liberals in the management of public affairs which continued throughout the Giolitti era. On 28 June 1914, the socialists won the elections on July 15th and became the first socialist administration to get in Accursio Palace, with the mayor Francesco Zanardi.
The administration Zanardi distinguished itself for the work of defense of the working class in the years of World War I with a policy aimed at moderation in food prices, especially bread. Zanardi was defined for that reason the mayor of the bread.
In 1919 in Bologna there were 40,000 unemployed because of the conflict. The fascists of Arpinati Leandro took the opportunity to make their first appearance in armed squads in September the 29th 1920. At the end of the event for the anniversary of the unification of Italy they attacked a group of socialists to death and wounded one. They established an atmosphere of tension that culminated in the tragic events of Accursio Palace on November 21, 1920: while people were celebrating the new mayor, the Socialist Enio Gnudi, the fascists came into the square.
It were fired a few rounds of gunfire and the crowd found hitself between fascists and police firing on Accursio Palace and the Socialists who responded to the fire. A bomb made a slaughter in the courtyard of City Hall: there were around 10 dead and 58 wounded, and the tragic event had national resonance. On 3 April 1923 The Communist militants were convicted, but escaped to Russia.
The regime's repression had a tightening after the official visit of Benito Mussolini, when he was attempted on his life: on 31 October 1926 the Duce pronounced at the Archiginnasio the opening speech of the Congress and the scientific return, while the car turn into via Independence at the Canton de 'Fiori, left a few shots that brushed Mussolini leaving him unharmed. A group of fascists pounced on sixteen Anteo Zamboni killing him. After the attack in Italy ended the press freedom and anti-fascist parties were dissolved.
In the Fascist period changes occurred in the urban and social fabric: the Littoriale (today called Stadio Renato Dall'Ara), the expansion of the hospital of Saint Orsola, Institutes and Universities in via Belmeloro and Irnerio, the Faculty of Engineering, the High School A. Righi, the arrangement of the Marconi Street, the village of the Fascist Revolution, currently Via Bandiera. New roads were opened, and reached the 300000 inhabitants.
The Second World War and the postwar period
It is still visible today on some walls the signs for air-raid shelters. During the Second World War the effects of the conflict were really strong : on 16th July 1943 began repeated aerial bombardment to which were added from autumn 1944 to spring of 1945 bombardment which caused destruction and more than three thousand dead, even if the air-raid shelters resisted.
At dawn of April the 21th 1945, with the arrival of Allied troops in Bologna, many industries were severely damaged, such as railways and roads, water, electricity, sewer and gas. But above all, many of his most famous buildings (44 percent of its historic building stock) appeared destroyed or damaged: the Basilica of San Francesco, the Archiginnasio, the Loggia dei Mercanti, the tomb of Rolandino de'Passeggeri, the Corso Theatre, the church of San Giovanni in Monte, the Oratory of St. Filippo Neri and the home of Guglielmo Marconi.
The people in Bologna showed a total rejection of the fascist republic and the German invader, and the tenacious resistance of the partisans contributed to the expulsion of Germans and fascists with a not insignificant toll: famous was the battle of Porta Lame fought by partisans November 7, 1944. On April 21, 1945 Giuseppe Dozza was appointed mayor by the Committee of National Liberation and reconfirmed by the citizens of Bologna for twenty years.
The new administration is fully engaged in the building sector- especially in the reconstruction of the numerous monumental buildings damaged and in the implementation of urban plans for public housing. In 1955 it approved the new plan and walked towards the economic boom; in the early sixties was built the first ring road of Bologna, Italy. In 1968 began the Tange's plan, the fairgrounds and the city's business were born, represented by the new towers outside Porta Mascarella. The airport was enlarged and in 2004 became an intercontinental airport.
