is a
Comune and city in
Emilia-Romagna ,
Italy , famed as the birthplace of the great painter
Melozzo Da Forlì and of Fascist leader
Benito Mussolini , at the nearby comune of
Predappio .
It is the capital of the
Province Of Forlì-Cesena .
The surroundings of Forlì have been inhabited since the , has revealed thousands of chipped flints in strata dated 800,000 years before present, which indicates a flint-knapping industry producing sharp-edged tools in a pre-
Acheulean phase of the Paleolithic
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About the city of Forlì, the legend would make its founder (
188 BC ) the consul
Marcus Livius Salinator , who confronted
Hasdrubal Barca and vanquished him at the banks of the
Metaurus River (
207 BC ). The old city was destroyed in
88 BC during the civil wars of
Marius and
Sulla and rebuilt by the praetor
Livius Clodius afterwards. Presumably ''Forum Livii'' was a middle-sized city producing agricultural products, which reached market via the
Via Aemilia .
After the collapse of the West, the city formed part of the realms of
Odoacer and of the
Ostrogoth kingdom before becoming an outlier of the Byzantine power of the
Exarchate Of Ravenna . In the time of the
Lombards , the city was contested and was repeatedly retaken by Lombard forces, in
665 ,
728 ,
742 . It was finally incorporated with the
Papal States in
757 , as part of the
Donation Of Pepin .
By the
9th Century , but perhaps a century earlier, the comune had wrested control from its bishops and was established as one of the independent Italian city-states, the
Communes that signalled the first revival of urban Italian life. Forlì became a republic for the first time in the
889 .
In the medieval struggles between
Guelphs And Ghibellines , Forlì remained with the Ghibelline factions, partly as a means of preserving its independence, rather than out of loyalty to the temporal power of the papacy. It supported all the
Holy Roman Emperors in their adventures in
Italy . Their fiercest rivals were
Faenza and
Bologna . In the centuries, popes many times tried to resume the control of Forlì, sometimes by violence sometimes by allurements.
More essentially local competition was involved in loyalties: in at the Ponte di San Procolo, on
June 15 ,
1275 ; against a
Guelph allied force, including
Florentine troops, at
Civitella on
November 14 ,
1276 ; and at Forlì itself against a powerful
French contingent sent by
Pope Martin IV , on
May 15 ,
1282 , in a battle cited by
Dante Alighieri (who was hosted in the city in
1303 by
Scarpetta Ordelaffi III ). In
1282 , Forlì's forces were led by
Guido Da Montefeltro . The famous
Astrologer Guido Bonatti (advisor of
Emperor Frederick II , too) was one of his advisors.
of 1180.]]
The following year the exhausted city's Senate was forced to accede anyway to papal power and asked Guido to take his leave. The commune soon submitted to a local ''
Condottiere '' rather than accept a representative of direct papal control, and
Simone Mestaguerra had himself proclaimed ''Lord of Forlì''. He did not succeed in leaving the new signory peacefully to an heir, however, and Forlì passed to
Maghinardo Pagano , then to
Uguccione Della Faggiuola (
1297 ), and to others, until in
1302 the
Ordelaffi came into power.
Local factions with papal support ousted the family several times, in (
1351 ), was expelled by
Francesco Degli Ordelaffi and Bishop
Giovanni Capparelli (
1427 ), banished by
Antonio Degli Ordelaffi . Bishop
Luigi Pirano (
1437 ) took an active part in the
Council Of Ferrara . In that period, the famous musician
Ugolino Da Orvieto , too, had to escape from Forlì, and went in
Ferrara .
The most renowned of the Ordelaffi was
Pino III , who held the Signiory of Forlì from
1466 to
1480 . Pino was a ruthless lord; nevertheless he enriched its city with new walls and buildings and was a sponsor of art. When he died just 40 years old, perhaps by poison, the situation of Forlì was weakened as contingents of Ordelaffi fought one another, until
Pope Sixtus IV claimed the signory for his nephew
Gerolamo Riario . Riario was married to
Caterina Sforza the indomitable ''Lady of Forlì'', whose name is associated with the city's last independent history. Forlì was seized in
1488 by
Visconti and in
1499 by
Cesare Borgia , after whose death it was more directly subject to the pope than it had ever been before (apart from an ephimeral return of Ordelaffi in
1503 -
1504 ).
The diseappearance of Forlì from wider history ended in June and
Aurelio Saffi were born in Forlì.
On
April 16 1988 , in Forlì,
Red Brigades killed Italian senator
Roberto Ruffilli , an advisor of
Prime Minister Ciriaco De Mita .
The most famous painter of the ,
Marco Palmezzano ,
Francesco Menzocchi ,
Livio Agresti . Together, they formed the
Forlì Painting School .
Carlo Cignani was not born in Forlì, but painted important works there.
Other famous forlivese men were:
Gian Battista Morgagni ,
Giuseppe Merenda and
Aurelio Saffi .
In the years between
1265 and the
1 May 1315 ,
Peregrine Laziosi lived in Forlì, as a friar. Now, he is the patron saint of persons suffering from
Cancer ,
AIDS and other serious diseases, according to the
Catholic Church .
