city founded by Etruscans c. 510 BC on the site of modern Bologna, Italy, an area rich in Villanovan (Villanovan culture) Iron Age remains. By the mid-4th century Felsina had fallen to invading Gauls (Boii tribe), who called it Bononia. Captured by Rome in 196 BC, it was colonized seven years later.

Before Etruscan times the Bologna area was an important centre of Villanovan Iron Age cultures of the central European Urnfield type that dominated north and west central Italy from the Po River to northern Campania and that in Tuscany and Latium provided the ethnic substratum of Etruscan culture. The site of Villanova is five miles northwest of Bologna, and the information found in the cemeteries west of Bologna provides the basis for dating all Villanovan material culture. Works are divided into three phases: Benacci I (c. 1050–900 BC); Benacci II (c. 900–700 BC); and Arnoaldi (c. 700–450 BC). The last phase overlaps but is culturally distinct from the Etruscan period, to which belong the graves at Certosa, a monastery a mile from Bologna.