Ravenna

:For other places named Ravenna, see Ravenna (disambiguation).

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Ravenna is a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, population 134,631 (2001). The city is inland, but is connected to the Adriatic Sea by a canal. Ravenna once served as the seat of the Roman Empire and later the Ostrogothic kingdom. It is presently the capital of the province of Ravenna.

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The origins of Ravenna are uncertain. The first settlement is variously attributed to the Tyrrhenians, the Thessalians, or the Umbrians. 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 as a federated town into the Roman Empire in 89 BC. In 49 BC, it was the location where Julius Caesar gathered his forces before crossing the Rubicon. Later, after his battle against Mark Anthony in 45 BC, Emperor Augustus founded the military harbor of Classe. 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 German campaigns, Thusnelda, widow of Arminius, and Marbod, King of the Marcomanni, were confined at Ravenna.

City: :For alternate meanings see city (disambiguation)...

Emilia-Romagna: Emilia-Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. It forms a rough triangle, bounded on the East by the Adriatic Sea, on the North by the Po river and on the South by the Appennine range. With 4,030,000 inhabitants in 22,123 ...

Italy: Italy (Italian: Repubblica Italiana or Italia) is a country in southern Europe. It comprises a boot-shaped peninsula and two large islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia, and shares its northern alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. The independent countries...

Ravenna related Images and Photos (experimental)

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Mosaic of Procession of Martyrs in Saint Apollinare Nuovo 6th century AD Ravenna