REGGIO EMILIA, a city and episcopal see of Emilia, Italy, the capital of the province of Reggio Emilia (till 1859 part of the duchy of Modena), 38 m. by rail N.W. of Bologna. Pop. (1906) 19,681 (town) 64,548 (commune) ; (town) 82,915 (commune). The town is in the shape of a diamond. The cathe dral, originally erected in the 12th century, was reconstructed in the 15th and 16th; the façade shows traces of both periods, the Renaissance work by Prospero Spani (1516-1584) being complete only in the lower portion. The Madonna della Ghiara, built in 1597-1619 in the form of a Greek cross, is beautifully propor tioned and finely decorated in stucco and with frescoes of the Bolognese school of the early 17th century. S. Prospero has a good façade of 1753. There are several good palaces of the early Renaissance, a fine theatre (5857) and a museum contain ing important palaeo-ethnological collections, ancient and me diaeval sculptures, and the natural history collection of Lazzaro Spallanzani. Lodovico Ariosto, the poet (1474-1533), was born
in Reggio, and his father's house is still preserved. The industries embrace the making of railway locomotives and carriages and tramcars, and of cheese.
Regium Lepidi was probably founded by M. Aemilius Lepidus during the construction of the Via Aemilia (187 B.c.), on which it lay half-way between Mutina and Parma. It was during the Roman period a flourishing town. The bishopric dates perhaps from the 4th century A.D. Under the Lombards the town was the seat of dukes and counts; in the 12th and 13th centuries it formed a flourishing republic, busied in surrounding itself with walls (1229), controlling the Crostolo and constructing navigable canals to the Po. About 1290 it first passed into the hands of Obizzo d'Este, and the authority of the Este family was finally recog nized in 1409.