Romanization in Italian-speaking Switzerland

7 October 2021

The tribes of the Po Valley in Northern Italy had different attitudes towards Rome’s military and political ambitions in the last century before Christ.

Some were hostile to Rome (the Insubrians), some concluded an alliance (Venetians and Cenomanes), and others remained hesitant (Ligurians).

After their conquest in the last decades before Christ, the Romans founded or rebuilt cities, applying a process of romanisation and urbanization to the Po Valley, called Cisalpina in the Republican era, and the Italian region XI or Transpadena during Emperor August’s reign (27 B.C.- 14 A.D.).

All these cities had similar, highly symbolic buildings (forum, theatre, aqueduct, temple) and architecture.

An exhibition in Brescia pays attention to the process of Romanization in Lombardy and, subsequently, southern Switzerland.

(Further information: www.bresciamusei.com).