Bologna's Etruscan origins go back at least 2,400 years.
It became a Roman city in the second century B.C. with the fall of the Roman Empire, it came under Byzantine rule.
then it the fell to the armies of northern barbarians called the Longobards.
Bologna became an independent city-state in about 1000.
in 157, the city came under the rule of the Roman Catholic Church.
this ended with the arrival of Napoleon and the French army in 1796.
then, in 1859, the city joined the Kingdom of Savoy, which became the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.