FAVENTIA
(Faenza) Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
A Roman city on the Via Aemilia near the Lamone
river, and ca. 29 km SW of Ravenna. It was founded in
the course of Roman settlement of the region in the Late
Republican period. The city was involved in the events
of the civil war at the time of Sulla. It had a certain economic importance as the center of an agricultural area
that produced linen and wine; and also as a crossroads.
Faventia was a rather early diocesan center.
The city had an orthogonal plan, still largely conserved; and an earlier circuit wall of limited extent in
opera quadrata. The city developed outside the wall in
the Imperial period, including also several irregular
traces of a suburb. The orientation is the same as that
of the centuriation axial on the Via Aemilia. Even though
no buildings of any importance remain, Faventia is one
of the best documented cities of the region.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Medri, Faenza romana (1947); Monti,
“Archeologia faentina,” Studi faentini in memoria di
G. Rossini (Soc. di Studi romagnoli, 1966) 67-174MPI.
G. A. MANSUELLI
