Romagnol

The Romagnol are the people of Romagna in northern Italy, around Ravenna, Forlì and Rimini. Roman colonies such as Ariminum were planted along the Via Aemilia from 268 BC. Ravenna became the Western Roman capital in 402 and later the Byzantine exarch's seat, until the Lombards overthrew the exarchate in 751.

Their vernacular is Romagnol, a Gallo-Italic language forming a branch of the Emilian-Romagnol continuum. Dante discussed its speech in De vulgari eloquentia, and its first printed literary text, Bernardino Catti's Sonetto romagnolo, appeared in 1502.

In 1278 Rudolf I ceded the region to the Papal States, but local dynasties such as the Ordelaffi and Malatesta held power. Cesare Borgia briefly built a Duchy of Romagna around 1500 before Pope Julius II reclaimed it; the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis of 1559 divided the land among the papacy, Este and Farnese.