Padanian Etruria

The Greek and Latin ancient writers tell us that an Etruscan expansion into Southern Italy, present day Campania region, and northwards into the Po Valley[1] occurred yet in the 9th century BC.

Following their usual methods, the Etruscan conquerors in the colonial areas overlapped themselves over the ancient inhabitants of the conquered regions imposing their culture and their political institutions.

Inside Padanian Etruria, it is supposed they were Felsina (Bologna), Spina and Marzabotto, while we can only guess about Ravenna, Cesena, Rimini, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Mantua and possibly, but improbably, Milan.

More probably, as the archaeological evidence suggests, both the traditions have to be accepted but must also be ascribed to two different moments of profound change in the political and economic framework of the Padanian Etruria.

The formative process of the city-states had concluded, within these polities the power of the great aristocratic families was matched and then replaced by that of a new social class of men whose wealth was based mainly on trade.

From the late 9th century BC, the human settlement in the Lower Po valley, previously organized in small groups of huts scattered throughout the country and mostly inhabited by Umbrians or other Italics, centers in some major urban areas as Bologna, the main city of Padanian Etruria, and Verucchio, then flourishing settlement in the heart of Romagna, by initiative of the etruscan colonists.

The current town derives its name from Vero Occhio ("True Eye"), referring to its privileged position offering a wide panorama of the surrounding countryside and the Romagna coast.

The Villanovan culture, named for an archaeological site at the village of Villanova, near Bologna (Etruscan Felsina), flourished in this area from the 10th until as late as the 6th century BC.