Faenza (anc. Faventia), a fortified city of central Italy, in the province and 18 m. S. W. of the city of Ravenna, on the Lamone, at its junction with the canal of Zanelli; pop. in 1871, 36,299. It is the seat of a bishopric, and has a fine cathedral, theatre, several churches and convents which contain valuable paintings, a lunatic asylum, a city hall, several splendid private palaces, a royal lyceum with a picture gallery, a communal gymnasium, and a technical school. The beauty of the city and its suburbs has gained for it the name of the Florence of Romagna. Its formerly celebrated manufactures of a peculiar earthenware, called from this place faience, have declined in importance, and its chief industry at present consists in manufactures of paper, linen, and silk, and in an active commerce in the products of the territory, which are taken by canal from Faenza to the Po. A few miles from the town are ferruginous and saline springs and baths, which are much resorted to.-This city was the scene of the defeat of Carbo and Nor-banus by Metellus, 82 B. 0. It was taken by the Goths in the 6th century, and by the emperor Frederick II. in 1241. Sir John Hawk-wood, in the service of Gregory XL, captured it in 1376, and put to death, it is said, about 4,000 persons.

It was successively subject to Bologna and Venice, and in 1509 was taken by Pope Julius II.