Faenza

Faenza, a town of Italy, 31 miles SE. of Bologna by rail, has an imposing cathedral, a fine market-place surrounded with arcades and adorned with a fountain, and numerous palaces and ecclesiastical edifices. Its manufacture of glazed and coloured earthenware vessels, in Italy called 'majolica,' and in France 'faience,' has declined in importance, and its chief industries now are the making of silk, linen, and paper. Pop. 13,998. Faenza, the ancient Faventia, at one period a town of the Boii, and afterwards a municipium under the Romans, fell under the power of the Manfredi family; in 1509 it was captured by Pope Julius II.; and in 1860 it passed, along with the Emilian provinces, to the kingdom of Italy.