The province of Ferrara ( it, provincia di Ferrara; egl, pruvîncia ad Fràra) is a

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

in the region of

Emilia-Romagna egl, Emigliàn (man) egl, Emiglièna (woman) rgn, Rumagnòl (man) rgn, Rumagnòla (woman) it, Emiliano (man) it, Emiliana (woman) or it, Romagnolo (man) it, Romagnola (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. Its provincial capital is the city Ferrara. As of 2016, it has a population of 354,238 inhabitants over an area of . It contains 23 ''

comuni The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

'', listed at

list of communes of the Province of Ferrara The following is a list of the 23 municipalities ('' comuni'') of the Province of Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. List See also * List of municipalities of Italy References {{Province of Ferrara Ferrara Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a cit ...

. Its president is Barbara Paron.

History

The province of Ferrara is believed to have been first settled in by the Romans at the site "Forum Alieni", although remains of the coastal port of Spina have been unearthed near

Comacchio Comacchio (; egl, label= Comacchiese, Cmâc' ) is a town and ''comune'' of Emilia Romagna, Italy, in the province of Ferrara, from the provincial capital Ferrara. It was founded about two thousand years ago; across its history it was first gover ...

by archaeologists. Ferrara was first mentioned when it was conquered by Germanic tribe the

Lombards The Lombards () or Langobards ( la, Langobardi) were a Germanic people who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774. The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the '' History of the Lombards'' (written between 787 an ...

in 753 CE, and the Byzantine Empire lost its rule over the city. It was gifted to the Holy See by the Franks in either 754 or 756 CE, and was led by the Bishops of Ravenna. Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries started reclaiming Podeltan lands in the 9th century. In 1055, the partially independent town of Fererra was given imperial powers, but was led by Matilda of Tuscany from 1101 and Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor from 1158. Members of the

House of Este The House of Este ( , , ) is a European dynasty of North Italian origin whose members ruled parts of Italy and Germany for many centuries. The original House of Este's elder branch, which is known as the House of Welf, included dukes of Bavaria ...

took control of the city during the 13th century, and formed a university in Ferrara in 1391. Walls were built around the perimeter of Ferrara in the 15th and 16th centuries. It joined the Papal States in 1598. Its citadel was occupied by the Austrians in 1831 after the Italian United Provinces was formed, and the Austrians occupied the city in 1847. On 21 June 1859 the Austrians left the city of Ferrara and it was able to join the Kingdom of Italy. In 1921,

Italo Balbo Italo Balbo (6 June 1896 – 28 June 1940) was an Italian fascist politician and Blackshirts' leader who served as Italy's Marshal of the Air Force, Governor-General of Libya and Commander-in-Chief of Italian North Africa. Due to his young a ...

joined the newly created

National Fascist Party The National Fascist Party ( it, Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF) was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian Fascism and as a reorganization of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. Th ...

and soon became a secretary of the Ferrara fascist organization. He began to organize Fascist gangs and formed his own group. They broke strikes for local landowners and attacked

communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

and

socialists Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the eco ...

in the region. His success in Ferrara set in motion the rapid rise of Fascism in northern Italy and played an important role in the transformation of Fascism into a major political movement.

Geography

The province of Ferarra is one of nine provinces in the region of

in the northeast of Italy. It is the most northerly province in the region to abut onto the

Adriatic Sea The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Sea) to t ...

. The

Province of Rovigo The Province of Rovigo (''Provincia di Rovigo'') is a province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Rovigo. It borders on the north with the provinces of Verona, Padua and Venice, on the south with the province of Ferrara, o ...

in the

Veneto it, Veneto (man) it, Veneta (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = ...

region lies immediately to the north and the Province of Mantua in Lombardy to the northwest. To the west lies the

Province of Modena The Province of Modena ( it, Provincia di Modena) is a province in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Modena. It has an area of and a total population of about 701,000 (2015). There are 48 ''comuni'' (singular: ''co ...

and the

Province of Bologna The province of Bologna ( it, provincia di Bologna) was a province in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Its provincial capital was the city of Bologna. The province of Bologna covered an area of and had a total population of 1,004,323 inhabitan ...

, and the

Province of Ravenna The province of Ravenna ( it, provincia di Ravenna; ) is a Provinces of Italy, province in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Ravenna. As of 2015, it has a population of 391,997 inhabitants over an area of , giving it ...

lies to the south. The provincial capital is the city of Ferrara, which is situated on a branch of the Po River about northeast of

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...

References

External links

* {{Coord, 44, 50, 42, N, 11, 37, 58, E, source:itwiki_type:adm2nd, display=title Ferrara