| Piacenza - history |
Piacenza
lies on the right bank of the river Po, at a crucial
crossroads in the south-west area of the Po Valley.
The first settlements date back to the stone and bronze
ages. Gauls and Etruscans are likely to have settled
in the area at a later stage, but there are no certain
traces left.
The earliest urban settlement may be traced back
to the year 218 B.C., when six thousand Romans founded
the colony of "Placentia". They left their
mark in the layout of the town, which has a square
plan organized around two main intersecting streets,
called cardo (north to south) and decumanum (east
to west), and a web of side streets at right angles
to each other. The strength of the colony was first
put to the test in the second Punic War, when the
Romans fought a fierce battle against Hannibal on
the river Trebbia.
In republican and imperial times, Piacenza became
an important centre with a flourishing river port,
and from 187 B.C. it was the end town of the Via
Aemilia, a main road at the foot of the Appennines,
which joined the Rome-bound Via Flaminia at Rimini.
With the beginning of the Christian era, the community consecrated modest
chapels to its first martyrs, which later grew into important churches.
During the Middle Ages the town was ravaged quite a few times, fell under
the power of the Germanic invaders and suffered the effects of the war
between the Goths and the troops of the Eastern Roman Empire. After being
under the rule of Ostrogoths and Byzantines, Piacenza became the administrative
centre of a Longobard dukedom, but its true recovery started in the ninth
century, under the Franks.
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Around the
year 1000 the town entered an era of demographic, political
and economical renaissance, in which a great role was
played by its strategic location along the Via Francigena,
at a crossroads of several important routes from the
Alps to Rome, with their constant stream of merchants
and pilgrims. In this age dominated by feudal lords and
count-bishops, an enterprising class of merchants and
craftsmen arose alongside the ancient aristocracy, representing
a new financial power which, centuries later, was to
turn Piacenza into one of the leading centres of Europe.
The end of the year 1000 saw the resurgence of pro-Papal
sympathies: it was not by chance that Urban II chose
Piacenza to proclaim the First Crusade for the liberation
of the Holy Land in 1095. Piacenza became a free city
in 1126, and took sides with the Lombard League against
Barbarossa, who signed here the preliminary agreements
for the Peace of Constance (1183).
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries trade and commerce increased (particularly
the production of textiles), agriculture flourished and the economy was boosted
by the exchange fair. Churches and monasteries were built, often with hospices
annexed. It was in this period that the two architectural emblems of the town
were erected: first the Cathedral, and later the Palazzo Gotico. In the Middle
Ages, however, Piacenza lived through a turbulent time of political feuding.
From the second half of the thirteenth century onwards, the town and territory
came in turn under the rule of the Scotti and Pallavicino families, of Alberto
Scoto (1290-1313), a merchant and powerful banker, and of the houses of Visconti
(until 1447) and Sforza (until 1499). Louis XII of France, who had claims over
the Milan area, ruled Piacenza until 1521.
In 1545, Pope Paul III Farnese conferred the newly-created dukedom of Parma and
Piacenza on his son Pier Luigi, the first of the eight Farnese dukes who were
to rule the town until 1731. The Bourbon succeeded the Farnese until 1859, but
the dukedom fell at intervals under the power of the Austrians, the French, and
Napoleon, and was governed by Maria Luigia of Austria between 1816 and 1847.
In 1848, Piacenza was the first town in Italy to vote unanimously to join the
kingdom of Sardinia. In 1859, Austrian troops left the town once and for all,
but the spirit of revolutionary independence was very much kept alive, as proved
by the mass enlistment in Garibaldi's expedition. |
The first
railway bridge, opened on 3 June 1865 in the presence
of the future King Umberto I, drastically improved the
connections between North and South.
In 1891, the charter of the first Italian workers' association was signed in
Piacenza, an early successful step in the workers' fight for protection and emancipation.
Piacenza paid a high toll for its remarkable participation in the two World Wars:
more than 600 soldiers died in the first conflict, and over 4,OOO died or went
missing during the second. In 1996, the city was awarded the Gold Medal for military
valour by President Scalfaro in recognition of the population's strong commitment
to the liberation fight against Nazism and Fascism. Partisan brigades entered
Piacenza, freed at last from the occupiers, on the morning of 28 April 1945,
a day which marks the beginning of the post-war period for the town. |
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Duomo
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