Bologna (/bəˈloʊnjə/, also UK: /bəˈlɒnjə/, Italian: [boˈloɲɲa] (listen); Bolognese: Bulåggna [buˈlʌɲːa]; Latin: Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy, at the heart of a metropolitan area of about one million people.

Of Etruscan origin, the city has been a major urban centre for centuries, first under the Etruscans, then under the Romans (Bononia), then again in the Middle Ages, as a free municipality and signoria, when it was among the largest European cities by population. Famous for its towers, churches and lengthy porticoes, Bologna has a well-preserved historical centre, thanks to a careful restoration and conservation policy which began at the end of the 1970s.^[5] Home to the oldest university in the world,^{[6][7][8][9][10]} the University of Bologna, established in AD 1088, the city has a large student population that gives it a cosmopolitan character. In 2000 it was declared European capital of culture^[11] and in 2006, a UNESCO "City of Music" and became part of the Creative Cities Network.^[12]

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 the most 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.^[13] As a consequence, Bologna is also one of the wealthiest cities in Italy, often ranking as one of the top cities in terms of quality of life in the country: in 2011 it ranked 1st out of 107 Italian cities.^[14]

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 (Villanova culture). The influence of Etruscan civilization reached the area in the 7th to 6th centuries, and the Etruscan city of Felsina was founded at the site of Bologna by the end of the 6th century. By the 4th century BCE, the site was occupied by the Gaulish Boii, and it became a Roman colony and municipium with the name of Bononia in 196 BCE.^[15] After the fall of the Roman Empire, Bologna, then a frontier outpost of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna was repeatedly sacked by the Goths; it is in this period that legendary Bishop Petronius, according to ancient chronicles, rebuilt the ruined town and founded the basilica of Saint Stephen.^[16] Petronius is still revered as patron saint of Bologna.

In 727-28, the city was sacked and captured by the Lombard under King Liutprand, becoming part of that kingdom. These Germanic conquerors built an important new quarter, called "addizione longobarda" (Italian for "Longobard addition") near the complex of St. Stephen.^[17] In the last quarter of the 8th century, Charlemagne, at the request of Pope Adrian I, invaded the Lombard Kingdom, causing its eventual demise. However Bologna, occupied by Frankish troops in 774 on behalf of the papacy, remained under imperial authority and prospered as a frontier mark of the Carolingian empire.^[18]

After the death of Matilda of Tuscany in 1115, Bologna obtained substantial concessions from Emperor Henry V. However, when Frederick Barbarossa subsequently attempted to strike down the deal, Bologna joined the Lombard League, which then defeated the imperial armies at the Battle of Legnano and established an effective autonomy at the Peace of Constance in 1183. Subsequently, the town began to expand rapidly and it 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.^[19] Believed to have been established in 1088, the University of Bologna is widely considered the oldest university in continuous operation.^[9][10] The university originated as a centre for the study of medieval Roman law under major glossators, including Irnerius. It numbered Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarca among its students.^[20] The medical school was especially renowned.^[21] By 1200, Bologna was a thriving commercial and artisanal centre of about 10,000 people.^[22]

During a campaign to support the imperial cities of Modena and Cremona against Bologna, Frederick II's son, King Enzo of Sardinia, was defeated and captured on 26 May 1249 at the Battle of Fossalta. Though the emperor demanded his release, Enzo was thenceforth kept a knightly prisoner in Bologna, in a palace that came to be named Palazzo Re Enzo after him. Every attempt to escape or to rescue him failed, and he died after more than 22 years in captivity.^[23] After the death of his half-brothers Conrad IV in 1254, Frederick of Antioch in 1256 and Manfred in 1266, as well as the execution his nephew Conradin in 1268, he was the last of the Hohenstaufen heirs.

During the late 1200s, 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 Cardinal Bertrand du Pouget in 1327. Du Pouget was eventually ousted by a popular rebellion and Bologna became a signoria under Taddeo Pepoli in 1334.^[24] By the arrival of the Black Death in 1348, Bologna had 40-50,000 inhabitants, reduced to just 20-25,000 after the plague.^[25]

In 1350 Bologna was conquered by Archbishop Giovanni Visconti, the new lord of Milan. However, following a rebellion by the town's governor, a renegade member of the Visconti family, Bologna was recuperated to the papacy in 1363 by Cardinal Gil Álvarez Carrillo de Albornoz after a long negotiation involving a huge indemnity paid to Bernabò Visconti (the heir to Giovanni, died in 1354).^[24] In 1376, Bologna again revolted against Papal rule and joined Florence in the unsuccessful War of the Eight Saints. However, extreme infighting inside the Holy See following the Western Schism prevented the papacy from restoring its domination over Bologna so that she remained relatively independent for some decades as an oligarchic republic. In 1401 Giovanni I Bentivoglio took power by 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 him killed the following year. In 1442 Hannibal I Bentivoglio, nephew of Giovanni, recovered Bologna from the Milanese, only to be assassinated in a conspiracy plotted by Pope Eugene IV three years later. But the signoria of the Bentivoglio family was then firmly established, and the power passed to his cousin Sante Bentivoglio who ruled until 1462, followed by Giovanni II. Giovanni II managed to resist the expansionist designs of Cesare Borgia for some time, but on 7 October 1506, Pope Julius II issued a bull deposing and excommunicating Bentivoglio and placing the city under interdict. When the papal troops, along with a contingent sent by Louis 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 that were marked by some major developments in Bologna. In 1530, Emperor Charles V was crowned in Bologna, the last of the Holy Roman Emperors to be crowned by the pope. In 1564, the Piazza del Nettuno and the Palazzo dei Banchi were built, along with the Archiginnasio, 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 the Bolognese School which includes Annibale Carracci, Domenichino, Guercino and others of European fame.^[26]

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 some 47,000 by 1630. During the Italian Plague of 1629–31 alone Bologna lost up to a third of its population.^[27] In the mid-17th century, 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.^[28] The university was losing students, that once came from all over Europe, because of the illiberal attitudes of the Church towards culture (especially after the trial of Galileo).^[29] Bologna continued to suffer a progressive deindustrialisation also in the 18th century.^[30]

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 promoting 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 and liberalising trade^[31] and relaxed the oppressive system of censorship.^[32]

The economic and demographic decline of Bologna became even more noticeable starting from 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. The economy was stagnant because of Papal policies that distorted trade with heavy custom dues and sold concessions of monopolies to single manufacturers thus lowering competition, depressing productivity and incentivising corruption.^[33]

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 lived Cispadane Republic, created as a client state of the French Empire at the congress of Reggio (27 December 1796 – 9 January 1797) but succeeded by the Cisalpine Republic on 9 July 1797, later by the Italian Republic and finally the Kingdom of Italy. After the fall of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna of 1815 restored Bologna to the Papal States. Papal rule was contested in the uprisings of 1831. The insurrected provinces planned to unite as the Province Italiane Unite with Bologna as capital. Pope Gregory XVI asked for Austrian help against the rebels. Metternich warned French king Louis 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.^[34]

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.^[35] In the revolutions 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 of Second War of Italian Independence, when the French and Pidemontese troops expelled the Austrians from Italian lands, on 11 and 12 March 1860, Bologna voted for joining the new Kingdom 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.^[36] 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.^[37] Indeed, Bologna gave Italy one of its first prime ministers, Marco Minghetti.

After World War I, Bologna was heavily involved in the Biennio 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 rising Fascist movement of Benito Mussolini.^[38] Dino Grandi, a high-ranking Fascist party official and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, remembered for being an Anglophile, was from Bologna. During the interwar 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.^[39]

Bologna suffered extensive damage during World War II. The strategic importance of the city as an industrial and railway hub connecting northern and central Italy made it a 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 more than 1,000 people dead and thousands injured.^[40]

After the armistice of 1943, the city became a key centre of the Italian resistance movement. On 7 November 1944, a pitched battle around Porta Lame, waged by partisans of the 7th Brigade of the Gruppi d'Azione Patriottica against Fascist 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.^[41] 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 the Battle 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 general Arturo Scattini, who entered the centre from Porta 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.

In the post-war years, Bologna became a thriving industrial centre as well as a political stronghold of the Italian Communist Party. Between 1945 and 1999, the city was helmed by an uninterrupted succession of mayors from the PCI and its successors, the Democratic Party of the Left and Democrats of the Left, the first of whom was Giuseppe Dozza. At the end of the 1960s the city authorities, worried by massive gentrification and suburbanisation, asked Japanese starchitect Kenzo Tange to sketch a master plan for a new town north of Bologna; however, the project that came out in 1970 was evaluated as too ambitious and expensive.^[42] Eventually the city council, in spite of vetoing Tange's master plan, decided to keep his project for a new exhibition centre and business district.^[43] At the end of 1978 the construction of a tower block and several diverse buildings and structures started.^[44] In 1985 the headquarters of the regional government of Emilia-Romagna moved in the new district.^[45]

In 1977 Bologna was the scene of rioting linked to the Movement 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 the Bologna massacre. In 1995, members of the neo-fascist group Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari were convicted for carrying out the attack, while Licio Gelli—Grand Master of the underground Freemason lodge Propaganda Due (P2)—was convicted for hampering the investigation, together with three agents of the secret military intelligence service SISMI (including Francesco Pazienza and Pietro 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 candidate Giorgio Guazzaloca. However, Bologna reverted to form in 2004 when Sergio 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 under Anna Maria Cancellieri (as a state-appointed prefect), Virginio Merola was elected as mayor, leading a left-wing coalition comprising the Democratic Party, Left Ecology Freedom and Italy of Values.^[46]

Bologna is situated on the edge of the Po Plain at the foot of the Apennine Mountains, at the meeting of the Reno and Savena river valleys. As Bologna's two main watercourses flow directly to the sea, the town lies outside of the drainage basin of the River Po. The Province of Bologna stretches from the western edge of the Po Plain on the border with Ferrara 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 (in Lizzano in Belvedere) at 1,945 metres (6,381 ft) above sea level.

Bologna has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfa).

Annual precipitation oscillates between around 450 mm (18 in) and 900 mm (35 in),^[47] with the majority generally falling in spring and autumn. The last major snow event was in November 2012.^[48]

The legislative body of the municipality 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 12 assessors, that is nominated and presided over by a directly elected Mayor. The current mayor of Bologna is Virginio Merola (PD), elected on 16 May 2011 with the 50.5% of the votes.^[52] On 19 June 2016 Merola was re-elected in a second-round ballot with 54.64% of votes.^[53]

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 in order to finance local activities.

Bologna is the capital of the eponymous metropolitan city and of Emilia-Romagna, one of the twenty regions of Italy. While the Province of Bologna has a population of 1,007,644,^[54] 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 is Fiera District, a tower complex designed by Japanese architect Kenzo Tange in 1985.

According to the last governmental dispositions concerning administrative reorganisation, the urban area of Bologna is one of the 15 Metropolitan municipalities (città metropolitane), new administrative bodies fully operative since 1 January 2015.^[55] 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.^[56] In this policy framework, the Mayor of Bologna is designated to exercise the functions of 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 21 June 2016 Virginio Merola, 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,^[57] containing an immense wealth of important medieval, renaissance, and baroque artistic monuments.

Bologna developed along the Via 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 the towers of Bologna are the central "Due Torri" (Asinelli and Garisenda), whose iconic leaning forms provide a popular symbol of the town.^[58]

The cityscape is further enriched by its elegant and extensive porticoes, for which the city is famous. In total, there are some 38 kilometres (24 miles) of porticoes in the city's historical centre^[59] (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.^[60] It connects Porta 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 the Sanctuary 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 windy 666 vault arcades, almost four kilometres (3,796 m or 12,454 ft) long, effectively links San 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 to Luke the Evangelist down to the Bologna Cathedral during the Feast of the Ascension.^[59]

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.^[61] The Basilica of Saint 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 goddess Isis. The Basilica of Saint Dominic is an example of Romanic architecture from the 13th century, enriched by the monumental tombs of great Bolognese glossators Rolandino de'Passeggeri and Egidio Foscherari. Basilicas of St Francis, Santa Maria dei Servi and San Giacomo Maggiore are other magnificent examples of 14th-century architecture, the latter also featuring Renaissance artworks such as the Bentivoglio Altarpiece by Lorenzo Costa. Finally, the Church of San Michele in Bosco is a 15th-century religious complex located on a hill not far from the city's historical cente.

In terms of total GDP, the Metropolitan 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 (after Milan and Bolzano/Bozen).^[62]

The economy of Bologna is characterized by a flourishing industrial sector, traditionally centered on the transformation of agricultural and zootechnical products (Granarolo, Segafredo Zanetti, Conserve Italia), machinery (Coesia, IMA), energy (Hera Group), automotive (Ducati, Lamborghini), footwear, textile, engineering, chemical, printing and publishing (il Mulino, Monrif Group, Zanichelli).

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 automatic packaging machines.^[63] Furthermore, Bologna is well known for its dense network of cooperatives, 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^[64] and occupies 265 thousand people in the Emilia-Romagna region.^[65]

Bologna is home to the Guglielmo Marconi International Airport, the seventh busiest Italian airport for passenger traffic (8 million passengers handled in 2017).

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.^[66] The city hosts several minor railway stations (see List of railway stations in Bologna).

In addition, Bologna San Donato classification yard, with 33 railway tracks, is the largest freight hub in Italy by size and traffic.^[67]

The city is also served by a large network of public bus lines, including trolleybus lines, operated since 2012 by Trasporto Passeggeri Emilia-Romagna (TPER).

A large commuter rail service is currently under development (see Bologna metropolitan railway service), and a four line tram network is also planned (see Trams in Bologna).^[68]

The average amount 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 amount 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, while 7% travel for over 12 km in a single direction.^[69]

At the end of 2016, the city proper had a population of 388,254 (while 1 million live in the greater Bologna area), located in the province of Bologna, Emilia Romagna, of whom 46.7% were male and 53.3% were female. 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. In the five years between 2002 and 2007, the population of Bologna grew by 0.0 percent, while Italy as a whole grew by 3.56 percent.^[70] The current birth rate of Bologna is 8.07 births per 1,000 inhabitants compared to the Italian average of 9.45 births.

As of 2009, 89.47% of the population was Italian. The largest immigrant group came from other European countries (mostly Romanians and Albanians): 2.82%, East Asia (mostly Filipino): 1.50%, and South Asia (mostly from Bangladesh): 1.39%.^[71]

The University of Bologna, conventionally said to have been founded in 1088 by glossators Irnerius and Pepo,^[72] is considered the oldest university in the world. It was an important centre of European intellectual life during the Middle Ages, attracting scholars from Italy and throughout Europe.^[73] 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 on Via Zamboni, in the north-eastern 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 nearby Cesena, Forlì, Ravenna, and Rimini. Noteworthy students present at the university in centuries past included Dante, Petrarch, Thomas Becket, Pope Nicholas V, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Peter Martyr Vermigli, and Copernicus. 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 of bioelectromagnetics, and Guglielmo 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.^[74] The university's botanical garden, the Orto Botanico dell'Università di Bologna, was established in 1568; it is the fourth oldest in Europe.

Johns Hopkins University maintains its Bologna 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.^[75] It was inspired by Marshall Plan efforts to build a cultural bridge between America and Europe.^[76] Today, the Bologna Center also hosts the Associazione italo-americana "Luciano Finelli", which supports cross-cultural awareness and exchange between Italy and the United States.^[77]

In addition, Bologna hosts a music school, Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martini, established in 1804, and an art school, Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna, founded in 1802. Both institutions were born as part of the reforms introduced by Napoleon Bonaparte.

Over the centuries, Bologna has acquired many nicknames: "the learned one" (la dotta) is a reference to its university; "the fat one" (la grassa) refers to its cuisine; "the red one" (la rossa), originally referring to the colour of the roofs in the historic centre, became later connected to the political leanings of the city, in particular after World War II: until the election of a centre-right mayor in 1999, the city was renowned as a bastion of the Italian Communist Party.^[78] The centre-left regained power again in the 2004 mayoral elections, with the election of Sergio Cofferati. It was one of the first European cities to experiment with the concept of free public transport.^[79]

The city of Bologna became a UNESCO 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."^[80]

The theatre was a popular form of entertainment in Bologna until the 16th century. The first public theater was the Teatro alla Scala, active since 1547 in Palazzo del Podestà. An important figure of Italian Bolognese theatre was Alfredo Testoni, the playwright, author of The Cardinal Lambertini, which has had great theatrical success since 1905, repeated on screen by the Bolognese actor Gino 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 the Teatro Comunale di Bologna. The Orchestra Mozart, whose music director was Claudio Abbado until his death in 2014, was created in 2004.

Bologna hosts a number of international music, art, dance and film festivals, including Angelica^[81] Bologna and Contemporanea (festivals on contemporary music),^[82] Bolognafestival (international classical music festival),^[83] Bologna Jazz Festival,^[84] Biografilm Festival (a film festival devote to biographic movies),^[85] BilBolBul (a comics festival),^[86] Danza Urbana (a street contemporary dance festival)^[87] F.I.S.Co(festival on contemporary art, now merged in Live Arts Week) Future Film Festival (animation and special effects),^[88]Il Cinema Ritrovato(film festival about rare and forgotten movies),^[89] Live Arts Week, Gender Bender (festival on gender identity, sexual orientation and body representation),^[90] Homework festival (electronic music festival),^[91] Human Rights Film Festival,^[92] Some Prefer Cake (lesbian film festival),^[93] Zecchino d'Oro (a children's song contest).

Bologna is renowned for its culinary tradition. It has baptised the famous Bolognese sauce, a meat-based pasta sauce that in Italy is called ragù and is substantially different from the variety found worldwide; moreover, in Bologna the sauce is used only as a dressing for tagliatelle, serving it with spaghetti being considered odd.^[94] Situated in the fertile Po River Valley, the rich local cuisine depends heavily on meats and cheeses. As in all of Emilia-Romagna, the production of cured pork meats such as prosciutto, mortadella and salumi is an important part of the local food industry.^[95] Well-regarded nearby vineyards include Pignoletto dei Colli Bolognesi, Lambrusco di Modena and Sangiovese di Romagna.^[96] Tagliatelle with ragù, lasagne, tortellini served in broth, and mortadella, the original Bologna sausage, are among the local specialties.^[97] Traditional Bolognese desserts are often linked to holidays, such as fave dei morti ("cookies of the dead"), multi-coloured almond paste cookies made for All Saints' Day, jam-filled raviole cookies that are served on Saint Joseph's Day, and carnival sweets known as sfrappole, a light and delicate fried pastry topped with powder sugar, certosino or panspeziale ("carthusian" o "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,^[98] as the zuppa inglese.

A sporting nickname for Bologna is Basket City in reference to the successes of the town's two rival historic basketball clubs, Fortitudo and Virtus, though the clubs are now often referred to by the names of their current sponsors.^[99] Of the two, the latter won 15 Italian basketball championships and two Euroleagues making them one of the most influential European basketball clubs; the former won two league titles between 1999 and 2005. The rivalry is temporarily dormant since Fortitudo left the country's professional ranks when, following the 2008–09 season, the club was relegated from the top-level Lega A to LegADue, before being relegated further to the nominally amateur Serie A Dilettanti for financial reasons; in the 2012–13 season, Fortitudo will play in the LegADue. The Italian Basketball League, which operates both Lega A and LegADue, has its headquarters in Bologna.

Football also has a strong tradition in Bologna. The city's main club, Bologna F.C. 1909, have won seven Italian league championships (the latest in 1963–64), which make them the sixth most successful team in the history of the league; in their heyday in the 1930s Bologna FC were called "Lo squadrone che tremare il mondo fa" (Italian for "The Team that Shakes the World"). The club play at the 38,000-capacity Stadio Renato Dall'Ara, which has hosted the Italian national team in both football and rugby union, as well as the San Marino national football team. It was also a venue at the 1990 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 ever club affiliated to the Italian rugby union federation.^[100] and, to date (2014) is Italy's oldest rugby union club still in operation. The club took part to 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 in 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.

In addition to the natives of the city listed above, the following have made Bologna their home:

Bologna is twinned with: