Ravenna ( rə-VEN-ə; Italian: [raˈvenna], also locally [raˈvɛn(n)a] ⓘ; Romagnol: Ravèna, Ravêna) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire during the fifth century AD until its collapse in 476, after which it served as the capital of the Ostrogothic Kingdom and then the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna. With a population of 156,475 inhabitants as of 2026, it is the 24th-largest city in Italy. Ravenna is also the second largest city in Italy by area with 653.82 km2.
Initially settled by the Umbri people, Ravenna came under Roman Republic control in 89 BC. Octavian built the military harbor of Classis at Ravenna, and the city remained an important seaport on the Adriatic until the early Middle Ages. The city prospered under imperial rule. In 401, Western Roman emperor Honorius moved his court from Mediolanum to Ravenna; it then served as capital of the empire for most of the 5th century.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Ravenna became the capital of Odoacer until he was defeated by the Ostrogoth king Theodoric. In 540, Belisarius conquered Ravenna for the Byzantine Empire, and the city became the capital of Byzantine Italy. After a brief Lombard control, Ravenna came under the authority of the Papacy and, save for minor interruptions, remained part of the Papal States until the mid-19th century when it was incorporated into the newly unified Kingdom of Italy.
Although it is an inland city, Ravenna is connected to the Adriatic Sea by the Candiano Canal. It is known for its well-preserved late Roman and Byzantine architecture, with eight buildings comprising the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna". Because of the high concentration of mosaics, the city has been associated with workshops and schools teaching mosaics, and is often given titles like the "capital of mosaics".
History
The origin of the name Ravenna is unclear. Some have speculated that "Ravenna" is related to "Rasenna" (or "Rasna"), the term that the pre-Roman Etruscans used for themselves, but there is no agreement on this point.
Ancient era
The physical establishment of the city is also uncertain. The oldest archaeological evidence found dates the Umbri presence in Ravenna at least to the 5th century BC. It was undisturbed until the 3rd century BC, when it first made contact with Rome; both groups are of early Italic origin after the Indo-European wave arrived on the peninsula. Its territory was settled also by the Celtic Senones, especially the southern countryside of the city unconnected to the lagoon. This would later form a part of the Ager Decimanus or Roman public land. Ravenna consisted of houses built on piles on a series of small islands in a marshy lagoon, a situation similar to Venice several centuries later. The Romans ignored it during their conquest of the Po River Delta, but later accepted it into the Roman Republic as a federated town in 89 BC.
The city was pivotal in the move from republic to empire and later military campaigns. In 49 BC, Julius Caesar gathered his forces at Ravenna before crossing the Rubicon. Later, Octavian, after his battle against Mark Antony in 31 BC, founded the military harbor of Classis. This harbor, protected at first by its own walls, was an important station of the Roman Imperial Fleet. Nowadays, the city is landlocked, but Ravenna remained an important seaport on the Adriatic until the early Middle Ages. During the Germanic campaigns, Thusnelda, widow of Arminius, and Marbod, King of the Marcomanni, were confined at Ravenna.
Ravenna greatly prospered under Roman rule. Emperor Trajan built a 70 km (43.50 mi) long aqueduct at the beginning of the 2nd century. During the Marcomannic Wars, Germanic settlers in Ravenna revolted and seized the city. For this reason, Marcus Aurelius decided not only against bringing more barbarians into Italy, but even banished those who had previously been brought there. In 402, Emperor Honorius took up residence of the city and it became the de facto capital of the Western Roman Empire; it served as the capital for most of the 5th century and the last de facto western emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed there in AD 476. At that time, it was home to 50,000 people. The transfer was made partly for defensive purposes: Ravenna was surrounded by swamps and marshes, and was perceived to be easily defensible (although in fact the city fell to opposing forces numerous times in its history); it is also likely that the move to Ravenna was due to the city's port and good sea-borne connections to the Eastern Roman Empire. In 409, King Alaric I of the Visigoths simply bypassed Ravenna, and went on to sack Rome in 410 and to take Galla Placidia, daughter of Emperor Theodosius I, hostage.
After many vicissitudes, Galla Placidia returned to Ravenna with her son, Emperor Valentinian III, due to the support of her nephew Theodosius II. Ravenna enjoyed a period of peace, during which time the imperial court favoured the Christian religion. The city gained some of its most famous monuments, including the Orthodox Baptistry, the misnamed Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (she was not actually buried there), and San Giovanni Evangelista.
Ostrogothic Kingdom
The late 5th century saw the dissolution of Roman authority in the west, and Romulus Augustulus was deposed in 476 by the general Odoacer. Odoacer ruled as King of Italy for 13 years, but in 489 the Eastern Emperor Zeno sent the Ostrogoth King Theodoric the Great to re-take the Italian peninsula. After losing the Battle of Verona, Odoacer retreated to Ravenna, where he withstood a siege of four years by Theodoric, until the taking of Rimini deprived Ravenna of supplies. Theodoric took Ravenna in 493, supposedly slaying Odoacer with his own hands, and Ravenna became the capital of the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy. Theodoric, following his imperial predecessors, also built many splendid buildings in and around Ravenna, including his palace church Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, an Arian cathedral (now Santo Spirito) and Baptistery, and his own Mausoleum just outside the walls.
Both Odoacer and Theodoric and their followers were Arian Christians, but co-existed peacefully with the Latins, who were largely Nicene. Ravenna's Nicene bishops carried out notable building projects, of which the sole surviving one is the Cappella Arcivescovile. Theodoric allowed Roman citizens within his kingdom to be subject to Roman law and the Roman judicial system. The Goths, meanwhile, lived under their own laws and customs. In 519, when a mob had burned down the synagogues of Ravenna, Theodoric ordered the town to rebuild them at its own expense.
Theodoric died in 526 and was succeeded by his young grandson Athalaric under the authority of his daughter Amalasuintha, but by 535 both were dead and Theodoric's line was represented only by Amalasuntha's daughter Mataswintha. Various Ostrogothic military leaders took the Kingdom of Italy, but none were as successful as Theodoric had been. Meanwhile, the Chalcedonian Byzantine Emperor Justinian I opposed both Ostrogoth rule and the Gothic variety of Christianity. In 535 his general Belisarius invaded Italy and in 540 conquered Ravenna. After the conquest of Italy was completed in 554, Ravenna became the seat of Byzantine government in Italy.
From 540 to 600, Ravenna's bishops embarked upon a notable building program of churches in Ravenna and in and around the port city of Classe. Surviving monuments include the Basilica of San Vitale and the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe, as well as the partially surviving San Michele in Africisco.
Exarchate of Ravenna
Following the conquests of Belisarius for Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I in the 6th century, Ravenna became the seat of the Byzantine governor of Italy, the Exarch, and was known as the Exarchate of Ravenna. It was at this time that the Ravenna Cosmography was written.
Under Byzantine rule, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Ravenna was temporarily granted autocephaly from the Roman Church by the emperor, in 666, but this was soon revoked. Nevertheless, the archbishop of Ravenna held the second place in Italy after the pope, and played an important role in many theological controversies during this period.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
The Lombards, under King Liutprand, occupied Ravenna in 712, but were forced to return it to the Byzantines. Shortly after Aistulf, the Lombard Duke of Friuli, was crowned King of the Lombards in 749, he pursued an aggressive policy of expansion into the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna and the territory claimed by the Pope through the Patrimony of Saint Peter.
In 751, the Byzantines surrendered the Exarchate of Ravenna to Aistulf. Aistulf then proceeded farther south and threatened Rome claiming jurisdiction and demanding tribute and acknowledgement of his sovereignty. Pope Stephen II appealed to Aistulf but to no avail. In 753, Pope Stephen traveled to France to seek the help of Pepin, King of the Franks. Pepin responded favorably and ultimately conducted two campaigns to the Italian Peninsula to confront Aistulf with respect to territory that had been taken illegally.
Finally in 756, Aistulf conceded defeat, and agreed to pay reparations and surrender the territory taken five years earlier. At that time, Pepin fulfilled a promise that he had made two years prior in France and granted the pope the right to large territories that included the former Exarchate of Ravenna and the Roman duchy. This act has become known as the Donation of Pepin and provided the legal basis for the creation of the Papal States.
After Pepin’s Donation and the establishment of the Papal States, Byzantine-era administrative structures collapsed during the 9th and 10th centuries. Papal control was indirect, with local dukes and Lombard lords exercising de facto power. During the 11th and 12th centuries, Ravenna became a contested city between the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy, with imperial appointees often clashing with papal legates.
The beginning of the 13th century was a period of great turmoil for the city of Ravenna. At that time, conflict between the Guelphs and Ghibellines was intensifying. In 1198, Ravenna led a league of Romagna cities and Marches against the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto IV. Pope Innocent III was able to capitalize on the anti-imperial sentiment in Romagna, to strengthen papal influence over Ravenna and other cities in the region.
In 1218, Pietro Traversari came to power in Ravenna after defeating the Ubertini and Mainardi factions during the Guelph-Ghibelline conflict. The Traversari family ruled Ravenna for 22 years until 1240 when Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II besieged Ravenna and expelled the Traversari after they aligned themselves with the pro-papal Guelphs.
Frederick’s Imperial Vicar ruled Ravenna for eight years until 1248 when Pope Innocent IV took Ravenna, and the Traversari returned to power. In 1275, the Traversari were driven from the city by Guido Novello da Polenta. The Da Polenta family established a hereditary lordship and governed with increasing independence as a papal vassal.
One of the most illustrious residents of Ravenna at this time was the exiled Florentine poet Dante. The last of the Da Polenta, Ostasio III, was ousted by the Republic of Venice in February 1441, and the city was annexed to the Venetian territories by the Treaty of Cremona.
Ravenna was then ruled by Venice until 1509, when the region was invaded in the course of the War of the League of Cambrai. At the Battle of Agnadello on 14 May, the French largely destroyed the Venetian army. Thereafter, the members of the League of Cambrai occupied Venice's mainland territories. After the Venetian withdrawal, Ravenna was again ruled by legates of the Pope as part of the Papal States. The Papal States retained control of Ravenna as the war continued, however in 1511, Pope Julius II created a new alliance with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire against France. In the conflict that ensued, France besieged Ravenna and then decisively defeated the League's relief forces at the Battle of Ravenna (1512). Following their victory, French troops sacked Ravenna. Contemporary accounts describe widespread killing of civilians and extensive looting of churches and houses. The French occupation lasted four months before their withdrawal.
In 1527, notwithstanding their alliance with Pope Clement VII, the Venetians occupied Ravenna and the Romagna, which, however, they were compelled to restore in 1529.
The city was damaged in a tremendous flood in May 1636. Over the next 300 years, a network of canals diverted nearby rivers and drained nearby swamps, thus reducing the possibility of flooding and creating a large belt of agricultural land around the city.
Modern age
In the 17th and 18th centuries, Ravenna was part of the Papal States up until 1796, when it was annexed into the French puppet state of the Cisalpine Republic / Italian Republic, and then made part of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1802. It was returned to the Papal States in 1814. Occupied by Piedmontese troops in 1859, Ravenna and the surrounding Romagna area became part of the new unified Kingdom of Italy in 1861.
During WWII, the town suffered severe damage. 52 Allied bombing raids had taken their toll, destroying some of Ravenna's noteworthy, unequalled early Christian art. Bombs intended for the railway station and its sidings had pulverised the Basilica of San Giovanni Evangelista in August 1944. On 5 November 1944 troops of 4th Princess Louise Dragoon Guards, 5th Canadian Armoured Division and the British 27th Lancers entered and liberated Ravenna. A total of 937 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the winter of 1944–45 are buried in Ravenna War Cemetery, including 438 Canadians.