Bologna is an important agricultural, industrial, financial and transport hub, where many large mechanical, electronic and food companies have their headquarters as well as one of the largest permanent trade fairs in Europe. According to recent data gathered by the European Regional Economic Growth Index (E-REGI) of 2009, Bologna is the first Italian city and the 47th European city in terms of its economic growth rate; in 2022,Il Sole 24 Ore named Bologna the best city in Italy for overall quality of life.[15] Bologna intends to becomecarbon neutral by 2040 and raise female employment rates, focusing on sustainable and equitable urban development.[16] The city is also increasing its investment in sustainability as part of a 2022–2024 program that integrates gender perspectives into urban planning, with an emphasis on sustainable mobility, public infrastructure, and green spaces.[16]
Traces of human habitation in the area of Bologna go back to the 3rd millennium BCE, with significant settlements from about the 9th century BCE (Villanovan culture). The influence ofEtruscan civilization reached the area in the 7th to 6th centuries, and the Etruscan city ofFelsina was established at the site of Bologna by the end of the 6th century. By the 4th century BCE, the site was occupied by theGaulishBoii, and it became a Roman colony andmunicipium with the name ofBonōnia in 196 BCE.[17] During the waning years of the Western Roman Empire Bologna was repeatedly sacked by theGoths. It is in this period that legendary BishopPetronius, according to ancient chronicles, rebuilt the ruined town and founded thebasilica of Saint Stephen.[18] Petronius is still revered as the patron saint of Bologna.
In 727–728, the city was sacked and captured by theLombards underKing Liutprand, becoming part of that kingdom. These Germanic conquerors built an important new quarter, calledaddizione longobarda (Italian meaning 'Longobard addition') near the complex of St. Stephen.[19] In the last quarter of the 8th century,Charlemagne, at the request ofPope Adrian I, invaded the Lombard Kingdom, causing its eventual demise. Occupied by Frankish troops in 774 on behalf of the papacy, Bologna remained under imperial authority and prospered as a frontiermark of theCarolingian empire.[20]
Porta Maggiore, one of the twelve medieval city gates of BolognaDepiction of a 14th-century fight between theGuelf andGhibelline factions in Bologna, from theCroniche of Giovanni Sercambi of Lucca
After the death ofMatilda of Tuscany in 1115, Bologna obtained substantial concessions from EmperorHenry V. However, whenFrederick Barbarossa subsequently attempted to strike down the deal, Bologna joined theLombard League, which then defeated the imperial armies at theBattle of Legnano and established an effective autonomy at thePeace of Constance in 1183. Subsequently, the town began to expand rapidly and became one of the main commercial trade centres of northern Italy thanks to a system of canals that allowed barges and ships to come and go.[27]
During a campaign to support the imperial cities ofModena andCremona against Bologna,Frederick II's son, KingEnzo of Sardinia, was defeated and captured on 26 May 1249 at theBattle of Fossalta. Although the emperor demanded his release, Enzo was thenceforth kept a knightly prisoner in Bologna, in a palace that came to be namedPalazzo Re Enzo after him. Every attempt to escape or to rescue him failed, and he died after more than 22 years in captivity.[28] After the death of his half-brothersConrad IV in 1254,Frederick of Antioch in 1256 andManfred in 1266, as well as the execution of his nephewConradin in 1268, he was the last of theHohenstaufen heirs.
During the late 13th-century, Bologna was affected by political instability when the most prominent families incessantly fought for the control of the town. The free commune was severely weakened by decades of infighting, allowing the pope to impose the rule of his envoy CardinalBertrand du Pouget in 1327. Du Pouget was eventually ousted by a popular rebellion and Bologna became asignoria under Taddeo Pepoli in 1334.[29] By the arrival of theBlack Death in 1348, Bologna had 40,000 to 50,000 inhabitants, reduced to just 20,000 to 25,000 after the plague.[30]
In 1350, Bologna was conquered by archbishopGiovanni Visconti, the new lord of Milan. But following a rebellion by the town's governor, a renegade member of the Visconti family, Bologna was recovered by the papacy in 1363 by CardinalGil Álvarez Carrillo de Albornoz after a long negotiation involving a huge indemnity paid toBernabò Visconti, Giovanni's heir, who died in 1354.[29] In 1376, Bologna again revolted against Papal rule and joined Florence in the unsuccessfulWar of the Eight Saints. However, extreme infighting inside the Holy See after theWestern Schism prevented the papacy from restoring its domination over Bologna, so it remained relatively independent for some decades as an oligarchic republic. In 1401,Giovanni I Bentivoglio took power in a coup with the support of Milan, but, having turned his back on them and allied with Florence, the Milanese marched on Bologna and had Giovanni killed the following year. In 1442,Hannibal I Bentivoglio, Giovanni's nephew, recovered Bologna from the Milanese, only to be assassinated in a conspiracy plotted byPope Eugene IV three years later. But thesignoria of theBentivoglio family was then firmly established, and the power passed to his cousinSante Bentivoglio, who ruled until 1462, followed byGiovanni II. Giovanni II managed to resist the expansionist designs ofCesare Borgia for some time, but on 7 October 1506,Pope Julius II issued a bull deposing andexcommunicating Bentivoglio and placing the city underinterdict. When the papal troops, along with a contingent sent byLouis XII of France, marched against Bologna, Bentivoglio and his family fled. Julius II entered the city triumphantly on 10 November.
The period of Papal rule over Bologna (1506–1796) has been generally evaluated by historians as one of severe decline. However, this was not evident in the 1500s, which were marked by some major developments in Bologna. In 1530,EmperorCharles V wascrowned in Bologna, the last of theHoly Roman Emperors to be crowned by the pope. In 1564, the Piazza del Nettuno and thePalazzo dei Banchi were built, along with theArchiginnasio, the main building of the university. The period of Papal rule saw also the construction of many churches and other religious establishments, and the restoration of older ones. At this time, Bologna had ninety-six convents, more than any other Italian city. Painters working in Bologna during this period established theBolognese School which includesAnnibale Carracci,Domenichino,Guercino, and others of European fame.[31]
Engraving of the city of Bologna fromLeandro Alberti'sHistory of Bologna, 1590, showing the two surviving towers and several others
It was only towards the end of the 16th century that severe signs of decline began to manifest. A series of plagues in the late 16th to early 17th century reduced the population of the city from some 72,000 in the mid-16th century to about 47,000 by 1630. During the1629–1631 Italian plague alone, Bologna lost up to a third of its population.[32] In the mid-17th century, the population stabilized at roughly 60,000, slowly increasing to some 70,000 by the mid-18th century. The economy of Bologna started to show signs of severe decline as the global centres of trade shifted towards the Atlantic. The traditional silk industry was in a critical state.[33] The university was losing students, who once came from all over Europe, because of the illiberal attitudes of the Church towards culture (especially after thetrial of Galileo).[34] Bologna continued to suffer a progressive deindustrialisation also in the 18th century.[35]
In the mid-1700s,Pope Benedict XIV, a Bolognese, tried to reverse the decline of the city with a series of reforms intended to stimulate the economy and promote the arts. However, these reforms achieved only mixed results. The pope's efforts to stimulate the decaying textile industry had little success, while he was more successful in reforming the tax system, liberalising trade[36] and relaxing the oppressive system of censorship.[37]
The economic and demographic decline of Bologna became even more noticeable starting in the second half of the 18th century. In 1790, the city had 72,000 inhabitants, ranking as the second largest in the Papal States; however, this figure had remained unchanged for decades.[3][38]
During this period, Papal economic policies included heavy customs duties and concessions of monopolies to single manufacturers.[38]
Piazza del Nettuno in 1855, looking towards Piazza Maggiore
Napoleon entered Bologna on 19 June 1796. Napoleon briefly reinstated the ancient mode of government, giving power to the Senate, which however had to swear fealty to the short-livedCispadane Republic, created as aclient state of theFrench First Republic at the congress of Reggio (27 December 1796 – 9 January 1797) but succeeded by theCisalpine Republic on 9 July 1797, later by theItalian Republic and finally theKingdom of Italy. After the fall of Napoleon, theCongress of Vienna of 1815 restored Bologna to thePapal States. Papal rule was contested in theuprisings of 1831. The insurrected provinces planned to unite as theProvince Italiane Unite with Bologna as the capital.Pope Gregory XVI asked forAustrian help against the rebels.Metternich warned French kingLouis Philippe I against intervention in Italian affairs, and in the spring of 1831, Austrian forces marched across the Italian peninsula, defeating the rebellion by 26 April.[39]
By the mid-1840s, unemployment levels were very high and traditional industries continued to languish or disappear; Bologna became a city of economic disparity with the top 10 percent of the population living off rent, another 20 percent exercising professions or commerce and 70 percent working in low-paid, often insecure manual jobs. The Papal census of 1841 reported 10,000 permanent beggars and another 30,000 (out of a total population of 70,000) who lived in poverty.[40] In therevolutions of 1848 the Austrian garrisons which controlled the city on behalf of the pope were temporarily expelled, but eventually came back and crushed the revolutionaries.
Papal rule finally ended in the aftermath ofSecond War of Italian Independence, when the French and Piedmontese troops expelled the Austrians from Italian lands, on 11 and 12 March 1860, Bologna voted to join the newKingdom of Italy. In the last decades of the 19th century, Bologna once again thrived economically and socially. In 1863 Naples was linked to Rome by railway, and the following year Bologna to Florence.[41] Bolognese moderate agrarian elites, that supported liberal insurgencies against the papacy and were admirers of the British political system and of free trade, envisioned a unified national state that would open a bigger market for the massive agricultural production of the Emilian plains.[42] Indeed, Bologna gave Italy one of its first prime ministers,Marco Minghetti.
AfterWorld War I, Bologna was heavily involved in theBiennio Rosso socialist uprisings. As a consequence, the traditionally moderate elites of the city turned their back on the progressive faction and gave their support to the risingFascist movement ofBenito Mussolini.[43]Dino Grandi, a high-ranking Fascist party official and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, remembered for being an Anglophile, was from Bologna. During theinterwar years, Bologna developed into an important manufacturing centre for food processing, agricultural machinery and metalworking. The Fascist regime poured in massive investments, for example with the setting up of a giant tobacco manufacturing plant in 1937.[44]
Sappers of the 136 Indian Railway Maintenance Company repair some of the extensive damage to the railyards in 1945.
Bologna suffered extensive damage duringWorld War II. The strategic importance of the city as an industrial and railway hub connecting northern and central Italy made ita target for the Allied forces. On 24 July 1943, a massive aerial bombardment destroyed a significant part of the historic city centre and killed about 200 people. The main railway station and adjoining areas were severely hit, and 44% of the buildings in the centre were listed as having been destroyed or severely damaged. The city was heavily bombed again on 25 September. The raids, which this time were not confined to the city centre, left 2,481 people dead and 2,000 injured.[45][46] By the end of the war, 43% of all buildings in Bologna had been destroyed or damaged.[47][48]
After thearmistice of 1943, the city became a key centre of theItalian resistance movement. On 7 November 1944, a pitched battle aroundPorta Lame, waged by partisans of the 7th Brigade of theGruppi d'Azione Patriottica againstFascist and Nazi occupation forces, did not succeed in triggering a general uprising, despite being one of the largest resistance-led urban conflicts in the European theatre.[49] Resistance forces entered Bologna on the morning of 21 April 1945. By this time, the Germans had already largely left the city in the face of the Allied advance, spearheaded by Polish forces advancing from the east during theBattle of Bologna which had been fought since 9 April. First to arrive in the centre was the 87th Infantry Regiment of the Friuli Combat Group under generalArturo Scattini, who entered the centre fromPorta Maggiore to the south. Since the soldiers were dressed in British outfits, they were initially thought to be part of the allied forces; when the local inhabitants heard the soldiers were speaking Italian, they poured out onto the streets to celebrate.[citation needed]
In the post-war years, Bologna became a thriving industrial centre as well as a political stronghold of theItalian Communist Party. Between 1945 and 1999, the city was helmed by an uninterrupted succession ofmayors from the PCI and its successors, theDemocratic Party of the Left andDemocrats of the Left, the first of whom wasGiuseppe Dozza. At the end of the 1960s the city authorities, worried by massivegentrification and suburbanisation, asked JapanesestarchitectKenzo Tange to sketch a master plan for anew town north of Bologna; however, the project that came out in 1970 was evaluated as too ambitious and expensive.[50] Eventually the city council, in spite of vetoing Tange's master plan, decided to keep his project for anew exhibition centre and business district.[51] At the end of 1978 the construction of a tower block and several diverse buildings and structures started.[52] In 1985 the headquarters of the regional government ofEmilia-Romagna moved in the new district.[53]
In 1977, Bologna was the scene ofrioting linked to theMovement of 1977, a spontaneous political movement of the time. The police shooting of a far-left activist,Francesco Lorusso, sparked two days of street clashes. On 2 August 1980, at the height of the "years of lead", a terrorist bomb was set off in the central railway station of Bologna killing 85 people and wounding 200, an event which is known in Italy as theBologna massacre. In 1995, members of theneo-fascist groupNuclei Armati Rivoluzionari were convicted for carrying out the attack, whileLicio Gelli—Grand Master of the underground Freemason lodgePropaganda Due (P2)—was convicted for hampering the investigation, together with three agents of the secret military intelligence serviceSISMI (includingFrancesco Pazienza andPietro Musumeci). Commemorations take place in Bologna on 2 August each year, culminating in a concert in the main square.
In 1999, the long tradition of left-wing mayors was interrupted by the victory of independent centre-right candidateGiorgio Guazzaloca. However, Bologna reverted to form in 2004 whenSergio Cofferati, a former trade union leader, unseated Guazzaloca. The next centre-left mayor,Flavio Delbono, elected in June 2009, resigned in January 2010 after being involved in a corruption scandal. After a 15-month period in which the city was administered underAnna Maria Cancellieri (as a state-appointedprefect),Virginio Merola was elected as mayor, leading a left-wing coalition comprising theDemocratic Party,Left Ecology Freedom andItaly of Values.[54] In2016, Merola was confirmed mayor, defeating the conservative candidate,Lucia Borgonzoni. In 2021, after ten years of Merola's mayorship, one of his closest allies,Matteo Lepore,was elected mayor with 61.9% of votes, becoming the most voted mayor of Bologna since the introduction of the direct elections in 1995.[55]
Aerial photograph of Bologna (north facing on the right)
Bologna is situated on the edge of thePo Plain at the foot of theApennine Mountains, at the meeting of theReno andSavena river valleys. As Bologna's two main watercourses flow directly to the sea, the town lies outside of the drainage basin of theRiver Po. Theprovince of Bologna stretches from the western edge of the Po Plain on the border withFerrara to the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines. The centre of the town is 54 metres (177 ft)above sea level (while elevation within the municipality ranges from 29 metres (95 ft) in the suburb of Corticella to 300 metres (980 ft) in Sabbiuno and the Colle della Guardia). The province of Bologna stretches from the Po Plain into the Apennines; the highest point in the province is the peak of Corno alle Scale (inLizzano in Belvedere) at 1,945 metres (6,381 ft) above sea level.
Annual precipitation is around 650–750 mm (25.5–29.5 in),[62] with the majority generally falling in spring and autumn. Snow is not uncommon between late November and early March; one of the snowiest months of the past decade was February 2012.[63] Here areclimate normals for the weather station of Bologna Borgo Panigale (at the airport), unaffected by the heat dome of the city, for both 1961–1990 and 1991–2020 periods, in order to highlight changes between the two periods (snow averages are referred to the city of Bologna, since there is not a complete archive for the Borgo Panigale area):
Climate data for Bologna (1991–2020 normals, extremes 1946–present)
The legislative body of themunicipality is the City Council (Consiglio Comunale), which is composed by 48 councillors elected every five years with a corrected proportional system (granting the majority to the list or alliance of lists which receives more votes), contextually to the mayoral elections. The executive body is the City Committee (Giunta Comunale), composed by 12assessors, that is nominated and presided over by a directly electedmayor. The current mayor of Bologna is Matteo Lepore (PD), elected on 4 October 2021 with 61.9% of the votes.[55]
The municipality of Bologna is subdivided into six administrative boroughs (quartieri), down from the former nine before the 2015 administrative reform. Each borough is governed by a Council (Consiglio) and a president, elected contextually to the city mayor. The urban organization is governed by the Italian Constitution (art. 114). The boroughs have the power to advise the mayor with nonbinding opinions on a large spectrum of topics (environment, construction, public health, local markets) and exercise the functions delegated to them by the City Council; in addition, they are supplied with an autonomous founding to finance local activities.
Fiera District, seat of the regional government of Emilia-Romagna
Bologna is the capital of the eponymous metropolitan city and ofEmilia-Romagna, one of the twentyregions of Italy. While the province of Bologna has a population of 1,007,644,[70] making it the twelfth most populated province of Italy, Emilia-Romagna ranks as the sixth most populated region of Italy, with about 4.5 million inhabitants, more than 7% of the national total. The seat of the regional government isFiera District, a tower complex designed by Japanese architectKenzo Tange in 1985.
According to the last governmental dispositions concerning administrative reorganisation, the urban area of Bologna is one of the 15metropolitan municipalities (città metropolitane), new administrative bodies fully operative since 1 January 2015.[71] The new Metro municipalities, giving large urban areas the administrative powers of a province, are conceived for improving the performance of local administrations and to slash local spending by better co-ordinating the municipalities in providing basic services (including transport, school and social programs) and environment protection.[72] In this policy framework, the mayor of Bologna is designated to exercise the functions of a metropolitan mayor (sindaco metropolitano), presiding over a Metropolitan Council formed by 18 mayors of municipalities within the Metro municipality.
The Metropolitan City of Bologna is headed by the metropolitan mayor (sindaco metropolitano) and by the Metropolitan Council (Consiglio metropolitano). Since 11 October 2021Matteo Lepore, as mayor of the capital city, has been the mayor of the Metropolitan City.
Until the late 19th century, when a large-scale urban renewal project was undertaken, Bologna was one of the few remaining large walled cities in Europe; to this day and despite having suffered considerable bombing damage in 1944, Bologna's 142 hectares (350 acres) historic centre is Europe's second largest,[73] containing an immense wealth of important medieval, renaissance, and baroque artistic monuments.
Bologna developed along theVia Emilia as an Etruscan and later Roman colony; the Via Emilia still runs straight through the city under the changing names of Strada Maggiore, Rizzoli, Ugo Bassi, and San Felice. Due to its Roman heritage, the central streets of Bologna, today largely pedestrianized, follow the grid pattern of the Roman settlement. The original Roman ramparts were supplanted by a high medieval system of fortifications, remains of which are still visible, and finally by a third and final set of ramparts built in the 13th century, of which numerous sections survive. No more than twenty medieval defensive towers remain out of up to 180 that were built in the 12th and 13th centuries before the arrival of unified civic government. The most famous of thetowers of Bologna are the centralDue Torri (Asinelli andGarisenda), whose iconic leaning forms provide a popular symbol of the town.[74]
The cityscape is further enriched by its elegant and extensiveporticoes, for which the city is famous. In total, there are some 38 kilometres (24 miles) ofporticoes in the city's historical centre[13] (over 45 km (28 mi) in the city proper), which make it possible to walk for long distances sheltered from the elements.
The Portico di San Luca is possibly the world's longest.[75] It connectsPorta Saragozza (one of the twelve gates of the ancient walls built in the Middle Ages, which circled a 7.5 km (4.7 mi) part of the city) with theSanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca, a church begun in 1723 on the site of an 11th century edifice which had already been enlarged in the 14th century, prominently located on a hill (289 metres (948 feet)) overlooking the town, which is one of Bologna's main landmarks. The winding 666 vault arcades, almost four kilometres (3,796 m or 12,454 ft) long, effectively linksSan Luca, as the church is commonly called, to the city centre. Its porticos provide shelter for the traditional procession which every year since 1433 has carried a Byzantine icon of the Madonna with Child attributed toLuke the Evangelist down to theBologna Cathedral during theFeast of the Ascension.[13]
San Petronio Basilica, built between 1388 and 1479 (but still unfinished), is the tenth-largest church in the world by volume, 132 metres long and 66 metres wide, while the vault reaches 45 metres inside and 51 metres in the facade. With its volume of 258,000 m3, it is the largest (Gothic or otherwise) church built of bricks of the world.[76] The Basilica ofSaint Stephen and its sanctuary are among the oldest structures in Bologna, having been built starting from the 8th century, according to the tradition on the site of an ancient temple dedicated to Egyptian goddessIsis. TheBasilica of Saint Dominic is an example of Romanic architecture from the 13th century, enriched by the monumental tombs of great Bologneseglossators Rolandino de'Passeggeri and Egidio Foscherari. Basilicas ofSt Francis,Santa Maria dei Servi andSan Giacomo Maggiore are other magnificent examples of 14th century architecture, the latter also featuring Renaissance artworks such as theBentivoglio Altarpiece byLorenzo Costa. Finally, the Church ofSan Michele in Bosco is a 15th century religious complex located on a hill not far from the city's historical center.
View from the top of the Basilica di San Petronio: the dome of Santuario di Santa Maria della Vita dominates the foreground; theAsinelli (higher) andGarisenda towers (Due Torri) are seen on the right.
Unipol Tower, at 127 m (417 ft), is the city's tallest building.
In terms of total GDP, theMetropolitan City of Bologna generated a value of about €35 billion ($40.6 billion) in 2017, equivalent to €34,251 ($40,165) per capita, the third highest figure among Italian provinces (afterMilan andBolzano/Bozen).[77]
In particular, Bologna is considered the centre of the so-called "packaging valley", an area well known for its high concentration of firms specialised in the manufacturing of automaticpackaging machines (Coesia [it],IMA).[78] Furthermore, Bologna is well known for its dense network ofcooperatives, a feature that dates back to the social struggles of farmers and workers in the 1800s and that today produces up to a third of its GDP[79] and occupies 265,000 people in the Emilia-Romagna region.[80]
Bologna Centrale railway station is one of Italy's most important train hubs thanks to the city's strategic location as a crossroad between north–south and east–west routes. It serves 58 million passengers annually.[81] The city hosts several minor railway stations (seeList of railway stations in Bologna).
The average length of time people spend commuting with public transit in Bologna, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 53 min. 9% of public transit riders ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average length of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 12 min, while 16% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 5.4 km (3.4 mi), while 7% travel for over 12 km (7.5 mi) in a single direction.[86]
As of 2025, the city proper had a population of 390,734, of whom 47.9% are male and 52.1% are female.[89] In 2016, minors (children ages 18 and younger) totalled 12.86 percent of the population compared to pensioners who number 27.02 percent. This compares with the Italian average of 18.06 percent (minors) and 19.94 percent (pensioners). The average age of Bologna resident is 51 compared to the Italian average of 42. Between 2011 and 2021, the population of Bologna grew by 4.4 percent, while Italy as a whole declined by 0.7 percent.[88] The current birth rate of Bologna is 8.07 births per 1,000 inhabitants compared to the Italian average of 9.45 births.
TheUniversity of Bologna, conventionally said to have been founded in 1088 byglossatorsIrnerius andPepo,[90] is theoldest university in continuous operation, and the first university in the sense of a higher-learning and degree-awarding institute, as the worduniversitas was coined at its foundation,[5][91][8][9] as well as one of the leading academic institutions in Italy and Europe.[92] It was an important centre of European intellectual life during the Middle Ages, attracting scholars from Italy and throughout Europe.[93] The Studium, as it was originally known, began as a loosely organized teaching system with each master collecting fees from students on an individual basis. The location of the early University was thus spread throughout the city, with various colleges being founded to support students of a specific nationality.
In the Napoleonic era, the headquarters of the university were moved to their present location onVia Zamboni, in the northeastern sector of the city centre. Today, the university's 11 schools, 33 departments, and 93 libraries are spread across the city and include four subsidiary campuses in nearbyCesena,Forlì,Ravenna, andRimini. Noteworthy students present at the university in centuries past includedDante,Petrarch,Thomas Becket,Pope Nicholas V,Erasmus of Rotterdam,Peter Martyr Vermigli, andCopernicus.Laura Bassi, appointed in 1732, became the first woman to officially teach at a university in Europe. In more recent history,Luigi Galvani, the discoverer ofbioelectromagnetics, andGuglielmo Marconi, the pioneer of radio technology, also worked at the university. The University of Bologna remains one of the most respected and dynamic post-secondary educational institutions in Italy. To this day, Bologna is still very much a university town, with over 80,000 enrolled students in 2015. This community includes a great number of Erasmus, Socrates, and overseas students.[94] The university'sbotanical garden, theOrto Botanico dell'Università di Bologna, was established in 1568; it is the fourth oldest in Europe.
Johns Hopkins University maintains itsBologna Center in the city, which hosts one of the overseas campuses of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). SAIS Bologna was founded in 1955 as the first campus of a US post-graduate school to open in Europe.[95] It was inspired by Marshall Plan efforts to build a cultural bridge between America and Europe.[96] Today, the Bologna Center also hosts theAssociazione italo-americana "Luciano Finelli", which supports cross-cultural awareness and exchange between Italy and the United States.[97]
Over the centuries, Bologna has acquired many nicknames: "the fat" (la grassa) refers to its cuisine, in which the most famous specialities are prepared using rich meats (especially pork), egg pasta and dairy products, such as butter and Parmesan. Another nickname that has been given to the city is "the red" (la rossa), which was originally used as a reference to the colour of the buildings in the city centre, has later become connected with the communist ideology supported by the majority of the population, in particular after World War II: until the election of a centre-right mayor in 1999, the city was renowned as a bastion of theItalian Communist Party.[98] The centre-left regained power again in the 2004 mayoral elections, with the election ofSergio Cofferati. It was one of the first European cities to experiment with the concept offree public transport.[99] Bologna has also two other nicknames: the first one, "the towered" (la turrita) refers to the high number of medieval towers that can be found in the city, even if today only 24 towers are still standing. The second one, "the learned" (la dotta) is a reference to its university.
Bologna'suniversity was founded in 1088 and it is considered the oldest university in the world. According to the QS University Rankings, Bologna university is the 3rd-ranked Italian university and the 138th-ranked in the world.
The large number of students coming from all over Italy and the world (there are several campuses of foreign universities in Bologna, including Johns Hopkins University, Dickinson College, Indiana University, Brown University, the University of California and more) has a considerable effect on everyday life. While it contributes to livening up the city centre (an area in which the average age of the residents is very high) and it also helps to promote cultural initiatives, on the other hand, it creates public order and waste management problems that stem from the lively nightlife of the university district.
The city of Bologna became aUNESCO City of Music on 26 May 2006. According to UNESCO, "As the first Italian city to be appointed to the Network, Bologna has demonstrated a rich musical tradition that is continuing to evolve as a vibrant factor of contemporary life and creation. It has also shown a strong commitment to promoting music as an important vehicle for inclusion in the fight against racism and in an effort to encourage economic and social development. Fostering a wide range of genres from classical to electronic, jazz, folk and opera, Bologna offers its citizens a musical vitality that deeply infiltrates the city's professional, academic, social and cultural facets."[100]
The theatre was a popular form of entertainment in Bologna until the 16th century. The first public theatre was the Teatro alla Scala, active since 1547 inPalazzo del Podestà. An important figure of Italian Bolognese theatre wasAlfredo Testoni, the playwright and author ofCardinal Lambertini, which has had great theatrical success since 1905, repeated on screen by the Bolognese actorGino Cervi. In 1998, the City of Bologna initiated the project "Bologna dei Teatri" ('Bologna of the Theatres'), an association of the major theatrical facilities in the city. This is a circuit of theatres which offer diverse theatrical opportunities, ranging from Bolognese dialect to contemporary dance, but with a communications strategy and promoting unity. Specifically, the shows on the bill in various theatres participating in the project are advertised weekly through a single poster. Bologna's opera house is theTeatro Comunale di Bologna. TheOrchestra Mozart, whose music director wasClaudio Abbado until his death in 2014, was created in 2004.
Bologna hosts a number of international music, art, dance and film festivals, including Angelica,[101]Bologna andContemporanea (festivals on contemporary music),[102] Bolognafestival (international classical music festival),[103] Bologna Jazz Festival,[104] Biografilm Festival (devoted to biographical movies),[105] BilBolBul (a comics festival),[106] Danza Urbana (a street contemporary dance festival),[107]F.I.S.Co (festival on contemporary art, now merged intoLive Arts Week), Future Film Festival (animation and special effects),[108]Il Cinema Ritrovato (film festival about rare and forgotten movies),[109]Live Arts Week, Gender Bender (festival on gender identity, sexual orientation, and body representation),[110] Homework festival (electronic music festival),[111] Human Rights Film Festival,[112] Some Prefer Cake (lesbian film festival),[113]Zecchino d'Oro (a children's song contest).
Bologna is renowned for its culinary tradition. It is the home of the famousBolognese sauce, a meat-based pasta sauce. In Italy, it is calledragù and is substantially different from the variety found worldwide. In Bologna, the sauce is served primarily withtagliatelle, and serving it withspaghetti is considered odd.[114]
Situated in the fertilePo Valley, the rich local cuisine depends heavily on meats and cheeses. As in all of Emilia-Romagna, the production ofcured pork meats such asprosciutto,mortadella andsalumi is an important part of the local food industry.[115] Well-regarded nearby vineyards includePignoletto dei Colli Bolognesi,Lambrusco di Modena andSangiovese di Romagna.[116] Tagliatelle with ragù,tortellini served in broth,lasagna and mortadella Bologna are among the local specialties.[117]
Traditional Bolognese desserts are often linked to holidays, such asfave dei morti, multi-colouredalmond paste cookies made forAll Saints' Day, jam-filled raviole cookies that are served onSaint Joseph's Day, and carnival sweets known assfrappole, a light and delicate fried pastry topped with powder sugar,certosino orpanspeziale ('carthusian' or 'apothecary-cake'), a spicy cake served on Christmas.Torta di riso, a custard-like cake made of almonds, rice and amaretto, is made throughout the year,[118] as well aszuppa inglese.
The PalaDozza, Bologna's historic basketball arena
In Bologna, unlike the vast majority of Italian cities,basketball is the most followed sport. In fact, the sporting nickname for Bologna isBasket City in reference to the successes of the town's two rival historic basketball clubs,Virtus andFortitudo.[119] Of the two, the former won, among others, 16Italian basketball championships, twoEuroLeagues, oneEuroCup and oneFIBA Saporta Cup, making them one of the most influential European basketball clubs; the latter won two league titles between 1999 and 2005. The Italian Basketball League, which operates bothSerie A andSerie A2, has its headquarters in Bologna. There are two indoor arenas in the city:PalaDozza, the oldest one with a capacity of 5,570 seats, andVirtus Arena, a temporary venue with a capacity of 9,980 seats. A third arena with a capacity of 11,000 seats, theUnipol Arena, is located inCasalecchio di Reno, neighbouring to Bologna.
The 32,000-capacity Stadio Renato Dall'Ara is the home of Bologna FC 1909.
Football also has a strong tradition in Bologna. The city's main club,Bologna FC 1909, have won seven Italian league championships (the latest in1963–64), which makes them the sixth most successful team in the history of the league; in addition, they have won threeCoppa Italia titles, the latest of which came in the 2024–2025 season; in their heyday in the 1930s Bologna FC was called "Lo squadrone che tremare il mondo fa" (Italian for 'The Team that Shakes the World'). The club play at the 38,000-capacityStadio Renato Dall'Ara, which has hosted the Italian national team in both football andrugby union, as well as theSan Marino national football team. It was also a venue at the1990 FIFA World Cup.
Rugby union is also present in the city: Rugby Bologna 1928 is not only one of the oldest Italian rugby union clubs but also the first club affiliated to theItalian rugby union federation.[120] and, to date (2014) is Italy's oldest rugby union club still in operation. The club took part in the top tier of the Italian championship for the first 25 years of their history never winning the title but getting to the runner-up place several times; they returned to the top division (Serie A1 then Super 10), in the late 1990s and faced serious financial problems which led them to the relegation and almost to disappearance.[citation needed]
^Hornblower, Simon; et al. (2012).The Oxford classical dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 230.ISBN978-0-19-954556-8.
^Butler, Alban (1814).The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, And Other Principal Saints. London: John Murphy.
^Heers, Jacques (1995).La città nel medioevo in Occidente : paesaggi, poteri e conflitti. Milano: Jaca Book. p. 63.ISBN978-88-16-40374-1.
^Kleinhenz, Christopher (2004).Medieval Italy : an encyclopedia. New York: Routledge. p. 134.ISBN978-0-415-93929-4.
^For a detailed account of how the relevant manuscripts and their transmission, see Charles M. Radding & Antonio Ciaralli,The Corpus iuris civilis in the Middle Ages: Manuscripts and Transmission from the Sixth Century to the Juristic Revival (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
^Jacques Verger (16 October 2003)."Patterns". In Hilde de Ridder-Symoens; Walter Rüegg (eds.).A History of the University in Europe. Vol. 1, Universities in the Middle Ages.Cambridge University Press. p. 48.ISBN9780521541138.There is no indication, however, that up until around 1180, the Bolognese law schools were anything other than private schools opened and run by each master after his own fashion, gathering together the students that had entered into an agreement with him and paid him fees (collectae) in return for his teaching. The crucial change would seem to have taken place around the years 1180–90. ... The masters, who were themselves mainly Bolognese in origin, agreed from 1189 to swear an oath to the commune not to seek to transfer thestudium elsewhere. The students, on the other hand, began to group themselves in nations, according to their places of origin (we hear of the Lombard nation as early as 1191), and these were soon federated into 'universities' with elected rectors at their head.
^Nancy G. Siraisi,Taddeo Alderotti and his pupils: two generations of Italian medical learning (Princeton University Press, 1981).
^Janin, Hunt (2008).The university in medieval life, 1179–1499. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. p. 56.ISBN978-0-7864-3462-6.
^Luzzatto, Gino (2015).An Economic History of Italy: From the Fall of the Empire to the Beginning of the 16th Century (1st ed.). Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge. p. 111.ISBN978-1-138-86495-5.
^Arnaldi, Girolamo (2008).Italy and its invaders. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 111.ISBN978-0-674-03033-6.
^Wray, Shona Kelly (2009).Communities and crisis : Bologna during the Black Death. Leiden: Brill. pp. 95–96.ISBN978-90-04-17634-8.
^Raimond Van Marle.The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, Volume 4 (1924) pp 394–481.
^Black, Christopher F. (2001).Early Modern Italy a Social History ([Online-Ausg.] ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 23.ISBN978-0-415-21434-6.
^Pullan, Brian, ed. (2006).Crisis and change in the Venetian economy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. London: Routledge. p. 132.ISBN978-0-415-37700-3.
^Gross, Hanns (2002).Rome in the Age of Enlightenment : the Post-Tridentine Syndrome and the Ancien Regime. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 238.ISBN978-0-521-89378-7.
^Gross, Hanns (2002).Rome in the Age of Enlightenment : the Post-Tridentine Syndrome and the Ancien Regime. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 89.ISBN978-0-521-89378-7.
^Wright, A.D. (2000).The early modern papacy : from the Council of Trent to the French Revolution, 1564–1789. Harlow, England: Longman. p. 261.ISBN978-0-582-08747-7.
^Messberger, Rebecca; et al. (2016).Benedict XIV and the Enlightenment: Art, Science, and Spirituality. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. 211.ISBN978-1-4426-3718-4.
^abHearder, Harry (1994).Italy in the age of the Risorgimento : 1790 – 1870 (7. impr. ed.). London: Longman. p. 121.ISBN978-0-582-49146-5.
^Hughes, Steven C. (1993).Crime, disorder, and the Risorgimento: the politics of policing in Bologna (1. publ. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 17.ISBN978-0-521-44450-7.
^Toniolo, Gianni (8 April 2016).An Economic History of Liberal Italy: 1850–1918. Abingdon-on-Thames:Routledge. p. 46.ISBN978-1-138-83052-3.
^Cardoza, Anthony L. (2016).Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism: The Province of Bologna, 1901–1926. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 32–40.ISBN978-0-691-64140-9.
^Cardoza, Anthony L. (2016).Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism: The Province of Bologna, 1901–1926. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 387–88.ISBN978-0-691-64140-9.
^Sabel, Charles F.; et al. (1997).World of possibilities : flexibility and mass production in western industrialization (1. publ. ed.). Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Press. pp. 382–88.ISBN978-0-521-49555-4.
San Petronio de Bologna: The floorplan of the building is a simple rectangle
Area = length of the building x width of the building = 132 m x 60 m
The volume, without the roofs, can be calculated as a sum of five cuboids, one single (the central nave) and two pairs (the aisles and the files of chapels). The sum of each of the pairs can be calculated as one cuboid of double width. Knowing the height of the central nave and the width of the building, the measures of the sections can be calculated by measuring an orthograde photo of the facade.
Volume = (traverse section of the central nave [width = 22 m, height = 44.27 m] + sum of the traverse sections of the two aisles [width = 20 m, height = 29.06 m] + sum of the traverse sections of the two files of chapels [width = 18 m, height = 22.38 m]) x length of the building [132 m]
(973.94 + 581.2 + 402.84) x 132 = 1,957.98 x 132 = 258,453.36
^Ridder-Symoens, Hilde de, ed. (2003).A history of the university in Europe (1st pbk. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 12.ISBN978-0-521-54113-8.
^Wolff, Alexander (2003). "6".Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure. Grand Central Publishing.ISBN978-0-446-67989-3.
^Zanasi, Gianni (6 March 2009)."Rugby Bologna 1928: quale futuro?" [What Future for Rugby Bologna 1928?].air.it (in Italian). Associazione Italiana Rugbysti. Archived fromthe original on 5 November 2014. Retrieved5 November 2014.
Mancini, Giorgia, and Nicholas Penny, eds.The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings: Volume III: Ferrara and Bologna (National Gallery Catalogues) (2016).
Rashdall, Hastings.The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages: Volume 1, Salerno, Bologna, Paris (2010).
Robertson, Anne Walters.Tyranny under the Mantle of St Peter: Pope Paul II and Bologna (2002)
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