Mevaniola
MEVANIOLA [UMBRIA]
A city in the valley of the Bidente (Vitis) 30 km from Forli. The city was a Roman center of Umbrian origin, founded by the inhabitants of Mevania (Bevagna), and was included in the sixth Augustan region (Plin. HN 3.113). Inscriptions mark the construction of a municipal building for a quatturovirale magistracy, which perhaps followed the social war with the assignment of the people to the tribus Stellatina. Excavations, mainly between 1958 and 1962, in the area called Monastero in the Pianetto section of the Comune of Galeata, have uncovered several monumental complexes that make up part of an urban establishment still only partially explored. They include an aqueduct with earthenware piping and a large cistern; and a large bath building with apsidal halls and basins, whose foundation is dated by an emblem of mosaic with an inscription of the decade between 50 and 40 B.C. There is also a theater (mid 1st c. B.C.) constructed in opus testaceum with orchestra tangent to the proscenium, the scena a straight platform, showing characteristics of the Hellenistic theater. Outside the urban area a brick furnace has been found, with combustion chambers and praefurnium.
BIBLIOGRAPHYCluverio, Italia antica (1659) 623; CIL XI 6603, 6606; A. Alessandri, I Municipi di Sarsina e Mevaniola (1928); E. Contu, NSc (1952) 6-19; C. Pietrangeli, Mevania (Bevagna) (1953); G. C. Susini, “Profilo di Storia Romana della Romagna,” Studi Romagnoli 8 (1957); id., “Fonti Mevaniolensi,” Studi Romagnoli 10 (1959) 1; G. B. Montanan, “Mevaniola,” Studi Romagnoli 10 (1959) 35; EAA 4 (1961); id., “Fornaci romane rinvenute in Emilia,” ArchCl 14, 2 (1962) 162; id., “Mevaniola,” Arte e civiltà romana nell'Italia settentrionale (1962) 568; id., NSc (1965) Supplement, pp. 83-99.
G. BERMOND MONTANARI