Editing Milan (section)

=== Roman times ===
{{Main|Mediolanum}}
[[File:Colonne di san lorenzo 01.jpg|thumb|left|Roman ruins in Milan: the [[Colonne di San Lorenzo|Columns of San Lorenzo]]]]
During the [[Roman Republic]], the Romans, led by consul [[Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus]], fought the Insubres and captured the settlement in 222 BC. The chief of the Insubres then submitted to Rome, giving the Romans control of the settlement.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0234%3Aid%3Db2c34|author=Polybius|title=Histories|access-date=11 July 2024}}</ref> The Romans eventually [[Roman expansion in Italy|conquered the entirety of the region]], calling the new [[Roman province|province]] "[[Cisalpine Gaul]]" ({{langx |la| Gallia Cisalpina}})—"Gaul this side of the Alps"—and may have given the city its Latinized name of Mediolanum: in [[Gaulish]] ''*medio-'' meant "middle, centre" and the name element ''-lanon'' is the Celtic equivalent of Latin ''-planum'' "plain", thus ''*Mediolanon'' (Latinized as ''Mediolānum'') meant "(settlement) in the midst of the plain".<ref name="Quintela"/><ref name="Delamarre 2003 https://archive.org/details/dictionnairedela00dela_348/page/n219 221–222"/> Mediolanum became the most important center of Cisalpine Gaul and, in the wake of economic development, in 49 BC, was elevated, within the ''[[Lex Roscia]]'', to the status of ''[[municipium]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.romanoimpero.com/2010/05/le-colonie-romane.html|title=Le colonie romane|access-date=6 June 2018|language=it}}</ref>
[[File:Ruins-imperial-complex-milan-.jpg|thumb|Ruins of the Emperor's palace in Milan located in Via Gorani. Here [[Constantine the Great|Constantine]] and [[Licinius]] issued the [[Edict of Milan]].]]
[[File:Civico museo archeologico di Milano 1.jpg|thumb|Remains of the [[Walls of Milan#Roman walls|Roman walls of Milan]] located inside the [[Archaeological Museum, Milan|Civic Archaeological Museum of Milan]]]]

The ancient Celtic settlement was, from a [[Topography|topographic]] point of view, superimposed and replaced by the Roman one. The Roman city was then gradually superimposed and replaced by the medieval one. The urban center of Milan has therefore grown constantly and rapidly, until modern times, around the first Celtic nucleus. The original Celtic toponym Medhelanon then changed, as evidenced by a graffiti in Celtic language present on a section of the Roman walls of Milan which dates back to a period following the Roman conquest of the Celtic village, in Mesiolano.<ref name="romanoimpero">{{cite web|url=https://www.romanoimpero.com/2010/07/mediolanum-milano-lombardia.html|title=Mediolanum-Milano|access-date=8 July 2018|language=it}}</ref> In 286, the Roman Emperor [[Diocletian]] moved the capital of the [[Western Roman Empire]] from Rome to Mediolanum.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://milano.corriere.it/foto-gallery/cronaca/16_febbraio_12/antica-mediolanum-rivive-computer-milano-romana-circo-anfiteatro-urbanfile-blog-66026574-d1af-11e5-9819-2c2b53be318b.shtml |title=Video of Roman Milan |access-date=24 November 2018 |archive-date=5 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180505073359/http://milano.corriere.it/foto-gallery/cronaca/16_febbraio_12/antica-mediolanum-rivive-computer-milano-romana-circo-anfiteatro-urbanfile-blog-66026574-d1af-11e5-9819-2c2b53be318b.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref> Diocletian himself chose to reside at [[Nicomedia]] in the Eastern Empire, leaving his colleague [[Maximian]] at Milan.

During the Augustan age Mediolanum was famous for its schools; it possessed a theatre and an [[Milan amphitheatre|amphitheatre]] (129.5 x 109.3 m), the third largest in [[Roman Italy]] after the [[Colosseum]] in Rome and the vast amphitheatre in [[Capua]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=Herbert W. |last=Benario |title=Amphitheatres of the Roman World |journal=The Classical Journal |volume=76 |issue=3 |year=1981 |pages=255–258 |jstor=3297328 }}</ref> A large stone wall encircled the city in Caesar's time, and later was expanded in the late third century AD, by Maximian. Maximian built several gigantic monuments including the large [[Roman circus|circus]] (470 × 85 metres) and the ''[[thermae]]'' or [[Baths of Hercules]], a large complex of imperial palaces and other services and buildings of which few visible traces remain. Maximian increased the city area to 375 acres by surrounding it with a new, larger stone wall (about 4.5&nbsp;km long) with many 24-sided towers. The monumental area had twin towers; the one included later in the construction of the convent of [[San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore|San Maurizio Maggiore]] remains 16.6 m high.

It was from Mediolanum that the [[Emperor Constantine]] issued what is now known as the [[Edict of Milan]] in AD 313, granting tolerance to all religions within the Empire, thus paving the way for Christianity to become the dominant religion of the Empire. Constantine was in Mediolanum to celebrate the wedding of his sister to the Eastern Emperor, [[Licinius]]. In 402, the [[Visigoths]] besieged the city and the [[Honorius (emperor)|Emperor Honorius]] moved the Imperial residence to [[Ravenna]].<ref>Compare:
{{cite book
 | last1 = Doyle
 | first1 = Chris
 | chapter = The move to Ravenna
 | title = Honorius: The Fight for the Roman West AD 395–423
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=johnDwAAQBAJ
 | series = Roman Imperial Biographies
 | location = Abingdon, Oxfordshire
 | publisher = Routledge
 | date = 2018
 | isbn = 978-1-317-27807-8
 | access-date = 20 January 2019
 | quote = A subject that has often been debated is Honorius' transfer of his court to Ravenna. Consensus holds that this occurred in 402 as a result of Alaric's siege of Milan, although no Honorian-era written primary source attests to this as the year or the reason [...].
 | archive-date = 13 June 2020
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200613065601/https://books.google.com/books?id=johnDwAAQBAJ
 | url-status = live
 }}</ref> In 452, [[Attila]] besieged the city, but the real break with the city's Imperial past came in 539, during the [[Gothic War (535–554)|Gothic War]], when [[Uraias]] (a nephew of [[Vitiges|Witiges]], formerly King of the [[Ostrogothic Kingdom|Italian Ostrogoths]]) carried out attacks in Milan, with losses, according to [[Procopius]], being about 300,000 men. The [[Lombards]] took [[Ticinum]] as their capital in 572 (renaming it ''Papia'' – the modern [[Pavia]]), and left [[Early Middle Ages|early-medieval]] Milan to the governance of its [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milan|archbishops]].