The monumental archaeological area of the Roman forum and the monastic complex of San Salvatore-Santa Giulia have become a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of a group of seven inscribed as Longobards in Italy, Places of Power.

In the arts, it was nicknamed Leonessa d'Italia ("The Lioness of Italy") by Gabriele d'Annunzio, who selected Gardone Riviera (nearby on the shores of Garda Lake) as his final residence.

The estate he built (largely thanks to state-sponsored funding), il Vittoriale, is now a public institution devoted to the arts; a museum dedicated to him is hosted in his former residence.

[8] Various myths relate to the founding of Brescia: one assigns it to Hercules, while another attributes its foundation as Altilia ("the other Ilium") by a fugitive from the siege of Troy.

This myth seems to have a grain of truth, because recent archaeological excavations have unearthed remains of a settlement dating back to 1,200 BC that scholars presume to have been built and inhabited by Ligures peoples.

[citation needed] When Constantine advanced against Maxentius in AD 312, an engagement took place at Brixia in which the enemy was forced to retreat as far as Verona.

Later dukes included the future kings of the Lombards Rothari and Rodoald, and Alachis II, a fervent anti-Catholic, who was killed in battle at Cornate d'Adda in 688.

Later the power of the bishop as imperial representative was gradually opposed by the local citizens and nobles, resulting in Brescia becoming a free commune around the early 12th century.

Subsequently, it expanded into the nearby countryside, first at the expense of the local landholders, and later against the neighbouring communes, notably Bergamo and Cremona.

During the early 1130s, when Anacletus had power over Brescia, he appointed Bishop Villanus to the diocese, but in 1132 Innocent regained control and installed Manfred.

'[15] Manfred was therefore forced to return to Rome and was likely witness to the Second Council of the Lateran in 1139, after which he obtained Pope Innocent's support and had Arnold exiled from Italy.

He worked with intellectual Peter Abelard (who he potentially studied under in the 1110s) who was condemned of heresy at the Council of Sens 1141 and went on to join the Commune of Rome in 1148, which led to his execution by Frederick Barbarossa and Pope Adrian IV in 1155.

After the fall of the Hohenstaufen, republican institutions declined in Brescia as in the other free cities and the leadership was contested between powerful families, chief among them the Maggi and the Brusati, the latter of the (pro-imperial, anti-papal) Ghibelline party.

Gaston de Foix, recently arrived to command the French armies in Italy, ordered the city to surrender; when it refused, he attacked it with around 12,000 men.

The French attack took place in a pouring rain, through a field of mud; Foix ordered his men to remove their shoes for better traction.

The resulting fire ignited 90,000 kg (90 t; 200,000 lb; 99 short tons) of gunpowder stored there, causing a massive explosion which destroyed one-sixth of the Brescia and killed 3,000 people.

[26][27] The largest immigrant group comes from other European nations (mostly Romania, Ukraine, Moldova and Albania), the others from South Asia (mostly Pakistan and India) and North Africa.

Since then to 2008 the center-left coalition held the largest number of seats with a partnership administration based on the alliance between the major left-wing, green and independents parties.

Anyway, in the 2008 local elections the center-right coalition formed by Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party and the regionalist Lega Nord won for the first time the majority in the City Council.

Here is a list of Brescia's zone and quartieri: Historical Centre North West South East The old town of Brescia (characterized, in the northeast, by a rectangular plan, with the streets that intersect at right angles, a peculiarity handed down from Roman times) has a significant artistic and archaeological heritage, consisting of various monuments ranging from the ancient age to contemporary.

In 2011, UNESCO inscribed the monumental area with the monastic complex of San Salvatore-Santa Giulia in the World Heritage List, belonging to the group known as "Longobards in Italy: Places of Power (568–774 A.D.)".

The stone quarries of Botticino, 8 km (5 mi) east of Brescia, supplied marble for the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II in Rome.

The fauna of the park includes foxes, European badgers, wild boars and other mammals, while the most common birds are robins, blackbirds, blackcaps and wrens.

In addition, in its old town, along the northern slope of the Cidneo Hill, there is the largest urban vineyard in Europe,[68] characterized by the cultivation of Invernenga, a local white grape variety present in Brescia since Roman times.

The intense industrial development has resulted in a high level of pollution in the outskirts of the city located near the disused chemical factory "Caffaro" that produced PCB.

[74] Additionally, Brescia is close to important tourist destinations (Milan can be directly reached in 45 minutes by train, Venice and Florence in about 2 hours) and is one of the cheapest cities in Italy in terms of hotel stays.

The objective of the ZTL, together with a program of pedestrianizations of the main squares and streets of the historical center, is to drastically reduce the chronic traffic jams that take place in the city of Brescia, promoting sustainable mobility and public transport, and decreasing the existing levels of smog that have become unsustainable from the point of view of public health.

The winning proposal was from a group of companies comprising Ansaldo STS, AnsaldoBreda, Astaldi and Acciona, with a system similar to that of the Copenhagen metro.

The main station, which opened in 1854, is located on the Milan-Venice railway and is the starting point for the Brescia-Iseo-Edolo, Brescia-Cremona, Brescia-Parma and Bergamo–Brescia rail lines.

In addition there are international day trains to Zurich, and overnight sleeper services to Paris and Dijon (Thello), Munich and Vienna (ÖBB).