Bologna

bo-lon'ya, an Italian city, the capital of the province of the name. It is situated in the valley of the Po at a point where important routes of traffic of the Apennines converge. It is still surrounded by a high brick wall pierced by twelve gates, admitting as many routes of travel. The streets are narrow, crooked, and clean. The upper stories of the houses project, and are supported by columns forming arcades for foot passengers. In the Middle Ages Bologna was a city of importance. Its merchants were men of influence. Its university was the earliest in Europe and was for a time the most renowned institution of learning in Italy. Galvani, for whom the galvanic battery is named, was a professor here, 1789. The medical department was the first in the world to teach anatomy by means of dissecting. It seems ridiculous that a city noted for learning, a city on which sculptors and painters have conferred renown, a city with 130 churches, a library of 200,000 volumes and 800 manuscripts, art galleries and museums, a city hall, and with a present population of 152,000 and large commercial and manufacturing interests, should be known in the western world chiefly as the home of the bologna sausage. See Italy