Faenza, Province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

🇮🇹 Faenza is an Italian city and comune in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, situated 50 km (31 miles) south-east of Bologna.

Faenza is home to a historical manufacture of majolica-ware glazed earthenware pottery, known from the French name of the town as faience.

Faenza, at the foot of the first sub-apennine hills, is surrounded by an agricultural region including vineyards in the hills, and cultivated land with traces of the ancient Roman land-division system, and fertile market gardens in the plains. In the nearby green valleys of the rivers Samoggia and Lamone there are great number of 18th and 19th century stately homes, set in extensive grounds or preceded by long cypress-lined driveways.

Tourist Industry Faenza's architectural attractions are concentrated in the two contiguous main squares: Piazza del Popolo, lined by two double order porticoed wings, and Piazza della Libertà.

Majolica Faenza is home to the International Museum of Ceramics. The museum houses pieces from all over the world and from every epoch, from classical amphoras to the works of Chagall and Picasso, and there is a rich section dedicated to Faenza pottery in the golden age of the Renaissance. Other interesting art collections are located in the Municipal Art Gallery, the Diocese Museum, the Bendandi Museum and the Manfredi Library. The historic production of Faenza majolica is recognised worldwide as one of the highest moments of artistic creativity expressed through pottery. The tradition was born from a convergence of favourable conditions: a territory rich in clay, a centuries-old history of political and commercial relations with nearby Tuscany (especially with Florence).

As a testament to the popularity of the city's majolica through the ages, on 18 August 2006, Quebec Premier Jean Charest announced that Canadian archaeologists had discovered the precise location of Canada's lost first colony of Charlesbourg-Royal, and that a fragment of a decorative Istoriato plate manufactured in Faenza between 1540 and 1550 was found there that could only have belonged to a member of the French aristocracy in the colony.

Culture In September and October international contemporary and classical ceramic art events, such as Argillà Italia and Buongiorno Ceramica, draw majolica amateurs, collectors and artists to Faenza from all over the world. In June the Palio del Niballo, a tournament between five horsemen from the districts of the town, re-evokes the magnificence and struggles of Faenza in the Manfredi epoch.

In the last weekend of September, the MEI - Meeting delle Etichette Indipendenti (Independent Label Meeting) takes place, a musical event in which record companies and musicians who define themselves as independent from the major record companies gather. Musicians of national calibre participate with concerts in the 2/3 evenings of the duration of the event. The event takes place in the historic centre.

Typical regional dishes include home-made tagliatelle, cappelletti, lasagna and strozzapreti with the Romagna meat sauce. Some of the typical restaurants in Faenza are La Baita, Marianaza, Trattoria da Manueli where you can find traditional local dishes.

The Botanical Gardens, next to the Civic Natural Science Museum with its collections, houses more than 170 species of plants indigenous to Romagna. There is about 1 square kilometre (0.39 sq mi) of public urban green area. The Bucci Park, created in 1968, has an area of about 80,000 square metres (20 acres) of undulating land, green meadows and fish-rich waters, with species of birds including wild duck, storks and swans.

Transport Faenza railway station, at Piazza Cesare Battisti, forms part of the Bologna–Ancona railway. It is also a terminus of two secondary railways, linking Faenza with Ravenna and Florence, respectively. Opened in 1893, it replaced an earlier station, which had been opened in 1861 at a location to the east of the present station, near what is now Via Caldesi.