The University of Modena, founded in 1175 and expanded by Francesco II d'Este in 1686, focuses on economics, medicine and law, and is the second oldest athenaeum in Italy.

The legislative body of the municipality (comune) is the City Council (Consiglio Comunale), which is composed by 32 members elected (jointly with the mayor) by the citizens every five years.

The first siege was by Pompey in 78 BC, when Mutina was defended by Marcus Junius Brutus[9] (a populist leader, not to be confused with his son, Caesar's best known assassin).

In the civil war following Caesar's assassination, the city was besieged again, this time by Mark Antony, in 44 BC, and defended by Decimus Junius Brutus.

Until the 3rd century AD, it kept its position as the most important city in the newly formed province Aemilia, but the fall of the Empire brought Mutina down with it, as it was used as a military base both against the barbarians and in the civil wars.

It is said that Mutina was never sacked by Attila, for a dense fog hid it (a miracle said to be provided by Saint Geminianus, bishop and patron of Modena), but it was eventually buried by a great flood in the 7th century and abandoned.

In December 2008, Italian researchers discovered the pottery center where the oil lamps that lit the ancient Roman empire were made.

There were vases, bottles, bricks, but most of all, hundreds of oil lamps, each bearing their maker's name", Donato Labate, the archaeologist in charge of the dig, stated.

Enlarged and fortified by Ercole II, it was made the primary ducal residence when Ferrara, the main Este seat, fell to the Pope in 1598.

In the 18th century, Rinaldo d'Este was twice driven from his city by French invasions, and Francesco III built many of Modena's public buildings, but the Este pictures were sold and many of them wound up in Dresden.

Although generally credited to Bartolomeo Avanzini, it has been suggested that advice and guidance in the design process had been sought from the contemporary luminaries, Cortona, Bernini, and Borromini.

The Salottino d'Oro ("Golden Hall"), covered with gilted removable panels, was used by Duke Francis III as his main cabinet of work.

Facing the Piazza Grande (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), the Town Hall of Modena was put together in the 17th and 18th centuries from several pre-existing edifices built from 1046 as municipal offices.

In the interior, noteworthy is the Sala del Fuoco ("Fire Hall"), with a painted frieze by Niccolò dell'Abbate (1546) portraying famous characters from Ancient Rome against a typical Emilia background.

The Camerino dei Confirmati ("Chamber of the Confirmed") houses one of the symbols of the city, the Secchia Rapita, a bucket kept in memory of the victorious Battle of Zappolino (1325) against Bologna.

Begun under the direction of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany[9] with its first stone laid 6 June 1099 and its crypt ready for the city's patron, Saint Geminianus, and consecrated only six years later, the Duomo of Modena was finished in 1184.

The building of a great cathedral in this flood-prone ravaged former center of Arianism was an act of urban renewal in itself, and an expression of the flood of piety that motivated the contemporary First Crusade.

The program of the sculpture is not lost in a welter of detail: the wild dangerous universe of the exterior is mediated by the Biblical figures of the portals leading to the Christian world of the interior.

In Wiligelmus' sculpture at Modena, the human body takes on a renewed physicality it had lost in the schematic symbolic figures of previous centuries.

The Museum Palace, on the St. Augustine square, is an example of civil architecture from the Este period, built as a Hostel for the poor, together with the nearby Hospital in the late 18th century.

The exhibition gallery was designed by the famous architect Jan Kaplický, who suddenly died in 2009, and carried on by his associate and loyal assistant Andrea Morgante.

The interior features a multimedia display of pictures, unpublished films and precious mementoes of Enzo Ferrari's life as a man, driver and car-maker throughout the 20th century.

The idea for the creation of the present theatre dates from 1838, when it became apparent that the then-existing Teatro Comunale di via Emilia (in dual private and public ownership) was no longer suitable for staging opera.

However, this house had been the venue for presentations of all of the works of Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini up to this time, and a flourishing operatic culture existed in Modena.

[11] Paid for in the manner typical of the time – from the sale of boxes – in addition to a significant gift from Duke Friedrich IV, Vandelli created a design for the new theatre combining ideas from those in Piacenza, Mantua, and Milan, and it opened on 2 October 1841 with a performance of Gandini's Adelaide di Borgogna al Castello di Canossa, an opera specially commissioned for the occasion.

Other dishes include torta Barozzi or torta nera, which is a black tart (a dessert made with a coffee/cocoa and almond filling encased in a fine pastry dough), ciccioli, made by slowly cooking, compressing, drying, and aging fatty, leftover pieces of pork, and pesto modenese, which is cured pork back fat pounded with garlic, rosemary and Parmesan, used to fill borlenghi and crescentine.

The practice of cooking the must of grapes can be traced back to the ancient Romans: the so-called sapum was used both as a medicinal product and in the kitchen as a sweetener and condiment.

Modena is known as the world's 'Supercar Capital', being the nearest large town to the homes of Maserati, Lamborghini, Pagani and previously also Ducati and De Tomaso.