Brescia

Brescia was founded more than 3,200 years ago; some scholars credit the Etruscans, and in the 7th century BC the Gallic Cenomani made it their capital. It became Roman in 225 BC and stayed loyal to Rome; its people received Roman citizenship in 41 BC, and Brixia gained temples, an aqueduct, a theatre and a forum with a temple built under Vespasian. Attila's Huns sacked it in 452. The Lombards took it in 568 or 569 and made it the seat of a duchy; Desiderius, the last Lombard king, was also Duke of Brescia, and the monastery of San Salvatore, later Santa Giulia, dates from that era. Charlemagne captured the city in 774.

As a medieval commune Brescia fought its neighbours Bergamo and Cremona and took sides for and against the emperors. In 1426 it passed to Venice, which held it with brief interruptions for almost four centuries. On 18 February 1512, during the War of the League of Cambrai, Gaston de Foix's French army stormed the rebellious city and sacked it for five days, killing thousands; Brescia, until then one of the wealthiest cities of Lombardy, never fully recovered.

After Napoleon and Austrian rule, the city rose against the Austrians in 1848 and again in March 1849, resisting for ten days of street fighting — the Ten Days of Brescia — that led Carducci to call it the Lioness of Italy. In the 20th century it became one of Italy's great industrial centres. On 28 May 1974 a bomb exploded in Piazza della Loggia during an anti-fascist demonstration of trade unions and workers, killing eight people and wounding about 100. In 2011 the Roman forum and Santa Giulia were listed by UNESCO, and in 2023 Brescia shared the title of Italian Capital of Culture with Bergamo.

Brescia's identity rests on its long history and its work. The Roman forum, the Lombard monastery, the Venetian-era Piazza della Loggia and the Piazza della Vittoria of 1927–1932 sit within a short walk of each other, and the bronze Winged Victory, found in the Capitolium in 1826, is a symbol of the city. Alessandro Manzoni set most of his 1822 play Adelchi here, and the Biblioteca Queriniana holds rare manuscripts, including the Codex Brixianus.

Motor racing is part of local pride. From 1927 to 1957 the Mille Miglia road race started and finished in Brescia on a round trip to Rome; it was stopped after a fatal crash in 1957, and the Historic Mille Miglia for cars of the original era still draws thousands of enthusiasts to the city each year, starting from Viale Venezia. The old monastery of Sant'Eufemia houses a museum of the race.

The city also has a long tradition of gunmaking — the Beretta company traces its origins to Bartolomeo Beretta in the 16th century — and a strong sporting life, including a basketball club that plays at the PalaLeonessa, opened in 2018, and a rivalry with Bergamo. The Teatro Grande, a national monument since 1912, is the centre of musical life. The old town's markets and arcades remain places of everyday life rather than tourism.

About 200,000 people live in the city — 201,342 in 2026 — making it Lombardy's second-largest after Milan, and more than 600,000 live in the continuous urban area that spreads north, west and east. About 22.6 per cent of residents were born abroad, and seniors make up about a quarter of the population.

Brescia sits at the centre of Italy's third-largest industrial area. Metallurgy, machine tools, firearms, vehicles — Iveco trucks are built by OM — cutlery and taps are made by firms that are typically small or medium-sized and often family-run, alongside larger groups such as the utility A2A and the steelmaker Lucchini. Italy's first industrial association was founded here in 1897. The municipality also lies within the production areas of Franciacorta, Botticino and Cellatica wines, and the old town has a large urban vineyard.

Industry has left problems too: pollution around the former Caffaro chemical works, which made PCBs, and some of the worst fine-particle air pollution among European cities. Daily life moves by metro, bus and car, with the Saturday markets and evening aperitivo in the squares. Laura Castelletti, deputy mayor for ten years, was elected mayor in 2023.

Brescian cooking, like most of Lombardy's, relies on butter and long-cooked dishes. A classic first course is casoncelli, casonsei in dialect, a stuffed pasta of the Lombard tradition served with melted butter, sage and a sprinkling of Parmigiano. Spiedo bresciano is the main dish: pork, chicken, rabbit and, traditionally, small birds threaded on long spits with potatoes and cooked for hours with butter, then served with polenta. Manzo all'olio, beef cooked with oil, is another classic, and polenta, typically the darker taragna made with maize and buckwheat flours, is at the heart of the everyday kitchen.

The province supplies olive oil from the Lake Garda shore and Bagoss, a hard, strongly flavoured mountain cheese, and it is the main source of caviar produced in Italy. The traditional sweet is bossolà, a very tall, soft ring cake dusted with powdered sugar.

Wine is a point of pride. Franciacorta, made by the traditional method in the hills between the city and Lake Iseo, is the sparkling wine the province is known for, and the municipality also lies within the Botticino and Cellatica wine areas. On Cidneo Hill an urban vineyard grows Invernenga, a white grape cultivated in Brescia since Roman times.