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 century preceding Christ.

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

After their conquests in the last decades before Christ, the Romans founded or rebuilt cities, applying a process of Romanisation and urbanisation to the Po Valley, known as Cisalpina in the Republican era, and the Italian region XI, or Transpadana, during Emperor August’s reign (27 B.C. – 14 A.D.).

All these cities had similar, highly symbolic buildings (such as forums, theatres, aqueducts, and temples) and architecture.

An exhibition in Brescia focuses on the process of Romanisation in Lombardy and, subsequently, southern Switzerland.

(Further information: www.bresciamusei.com).