- Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi [gue:lmo mar'ko:ni] (25 April 1874 - 20 July 1937) was an Italian inventor, best known for his development of a radiotelegraph system, which served as the foundation for the establishment of numerous affiliated companies worldwide. He shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun, "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy".
- Sebastiano Serlio
Sebastiano Serlio was an Italian Mannerist architect, who was part of the Italian team building the Palace of Fontainebleau. Serlio helped canonize the classical orders of architecture in his influential treatise, "I sette libri dell'architettura" (aka "Tutte l'opere d'architettura et prospettiva").
- Guido Reni
Guido Reni (November 4, 1575 - August 18, 1642) was a prominent Italian painter of high-Baroque style.
- Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci (November 3, 1560 - July 15, 1609 was an Italian Baroque painter.
- Lucio Dalla
Lucio Dalla (born March 4, 1943 in Bologna) is a popular Italian singer-songwriter and musician. He also plays clarinet and keyboards.
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini was an Italian poet, intellectual, film director, and writer. Pasolini distinguished himself as a philosopher, linguist, novelist, playwright, filmmaker, newspaper and magazine columnist, actor, painter and political figure. He demonstrated a unique and extraordinary cultural versatility, in the process becoming a highly controversial figure.
- Pope Benedict Xiv
Pope Benedict XIV (March 31, 1675 - May 3, 1758), born Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, was Pope from 17 August 1740 to 3 May 1758.
- Christian Vieri
Christian "Bobo" Vieri (born July 12, 1973 in Bologna, Italy) is an Italian football striker. He is currently unattached, having left Atalanta at the end of June 2007.
- Giorgio Morandi
Giorgio Morandi was an Italian painter who specialized in still life.
- Amico Aspertini
Amico Aspertini (c. 1474 - 1552) is an Italian Renaissance painter whose complex, eccentric, and eclectic style anticipates Mannerism. He is considered among the first of the Bolognese School of painting.
- Ludovico Carracci
Ludovico (or Lodovico) Carracci (April 21, 1555 - November 13, 1619) was an Italian, early-Baroque painter, etcher, and printmaker born in Bologna. Ludovico himself apprenticed under Prospero Fontana in Bologna and traveled to Florence, Parma, and Venice, before returning to his hometown. Along with his cousins Annibale and Agostino Carracci, …
- Agostino Carracci
Agostino Carracci (or Caracci) (August 16, 1557 - March 22, 1602) was an Italian painter and printmaker. He was the brother of the more famous Annibale and cousin of Lodovico Carracci. He posited the ideal in nature, and was the founder of the competing school to the more gritty (for lack of a better term) view of nature as expressed by Caravaggio. He was, along with his brothers, one of the founders of the Accademia degli Incamminati, …
- Alex Zanardi
Alessandro "Alex" Zanardi, (born October 23, 1966), is an Italian racing driver. He won two CART championship titles in North America during the late 1990s. He also had a less successful career as a Formula One driver. More recently he has attracted widespread praise for his racing comeback in the aftermath of a crash in 2001 which resulted in him losing both legs. As of 2007 he competes in the World Touring Car Championship.
- Edgardo Mortara
Edgardo Mortara (August 27, 1851 - March 11, 1940) was a Jewish-born Italian Catholic priest, who became the center of an international controversy when, as a six-year-old boy, he was seized from his Jewish parents by the Papal States authorities and taken to be raised as a Catholic. The Mortara case was the catalyst for far-reaching political changes, …
- Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi (Bologna, July 9, 1879 - Rome, April 18, 1936) was an Italian composer, musicologist, pianist, violist and violinist. He is best known for his "Roman trilogy" and the three suites of "Ancient Airs and Dances".
- Ulisse Aldrovandi
Ulisse Aldrovandi (11 September 1522 - 10 November 1605) was an Italian naturalist, the moving force behind Bologna's botanical garden, one of the first in Europe. Carolus Linnaeus and the comte de Buffon reckoned him the father of natural history studies. He is usually referred to, especially in older literature, as Aldrovandus.
- Pierluigi Collina
Pierluigi Collina (born 13 February 1960) is an Italian former football referee, who was widely regarded as one of the world's best officials. He is still involved in football as non-paid consultant to the Italian Football Referees Association ("AIA"), and is a member of the UEFA Referees Committee.
- Gianluca Pagliuca
Gianluca Pagliuca (born December 18, 1966 in Bologna) is an Italian football goalkeeper. In his club career, Pagliuca has played for Sampdoria (1987-94), Inter (1994-99), Bologna (1999-2006), and currently plays at Serie A club Ascoli. He won the Cup Winners' Cup and one "Scudetto" with Sampdoria and the UEFA Cup with Inter, when he captained the side to a 3-0 win over Lazio in 1998.
- Pier Ferdinando Casini
Pier Ferdinando (or Pierferdinando) Casini (born 3 December 1955) is an Italian politician. President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies from 2001 to 2006, he is currently President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), of the Christian Democratic International (CDI) and member of the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC).
- Francesco Albani
Francesco Albani or Albano (March 17 or August 17, 1578-October 4, 1660) was an Italian Baroque painter.
- Pupi Avati
Giuseppe Avati, better known as Pupi Avati (born November 2, 1938), is an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter.
- Giovanni Ii Bentivoglio
Giovanni II Bentivoglio (February 12, 1443 - February 15, 1508) was an Italian nobleman who ruled as tyrant of Bologna from 1463 until 1506. He had no formal position, but held power as the city's "first citizen." The Bentivoglio family ruled over Bologna from 1443, and repeatedly attempted to consolidate their hold of the Signoria of the city.
- Laura Bassi
Laura Maria Caterina Bassi (31 October 1711 - 20 February 1778) was an Italian scientist, the first woman to officially teach at a college in Europe.
- Stefano Benni
Stefano Benni (August 12, 1947, Bologna) is an Italian satirical writer and journalist. His books have been translated into around 20 foreign languages and scored a notable commercial success. He sold 2,5 million copies of his books in Italy.
- Prospero Fontana
Prospero Fontana (1512 - 1597) was an Italian painter of the late Renaissance
- Veronica Lario
Veronica Lario (born on 19 July 1956 as Miriam Raffaella Bartolini) is an Italian actress, currently the wife of Italian ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
- Carlo Cignani
Carlo Cignani (May 15, 1628 - September 6, 1719) was an Italian painter of the Bolognese school, active in the Baroque period. He was born to a noble family in Bologna, where he studied first under Battista Cairo and later under Francesco Albani, to whom he remained closely allied, and was his most famous disciple. He was, however, also strongly influenced by the genius of Correggio. For instance, his masterpiece, the "Assumption of the Virgin", …
- Lavinia Fontana
Lavinia Fontana (August 24 1552-August 11 1614) was an Italian painter.
- Saint Petronius
Saint Petronius (Italian: San Petronio) (died ca. 450 AD) was bishop of Bologna during the fifth century. He is a patron saint of the city. Born of a noble Roman family, he became a convert to Christianity and subsequently a priest. As bishop of Bologna, he built the Church of Santo Stefano.
- Domenico Zampieri
Domenico Zampieri (or Domenichino) (October 21, 1581-April 15, 1641), was a prominent high Baroque Italian painter of the Bolognese School, or Carracci School, of painters.
- Adriano Banchieri
Adriano Banchieri (September 3, 1568 - 1634) was an Italian composer, music theorist, organist and poet of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He founded the Accademia dei Floridi in Bologna. He was born and died in Bologna. In 1587 he became a monk of the Benedictine order, taking his vows in 1590, and changing his name to Adriano (from Tommaso). One of his teachers at the monastery was Gioseffo Guami, who was formative on his style.
- Marco Biagi
Marco Biagi (November 24 1950-March 19 2002) was an Italian jurist. A native of Bologna, he was professor of labour law and industrial relations at the University of Modena. Biagi was assassinated by members of the Red Brigade outside his home in Bologna on March 19 2002, due to his role as an economic advisor to Roberto Maroni, a minister in Silvio Berlusconi's government.
- Scipione del Ferro
Scipione del Ferro (February 6 1465 - November 5, 1526) was an Italian mathematician who first discovered a method to solve cubic equations.
- Giorgio Bassani
Giorgio Bassani (March 4, 1916 - April 13, 2000) was an Italian novelist, poet, essayist, editor, and international intellectual.
- Marco Minghetti
Marco Minghetti (November 18, 1818 - December 10, 1886) was an Italian economist and statesman.
- Alessandro Tiarini
Alessandro Tiarini (1577 - February 8, 1668) was an Italian Baroque painter of the Bolognese School. He was born in Bologna. His mother died when he was a child, and he was raised by an aunt, and early on they tried, unsuccessfully to guide him towards becoming a cleric. He was the godson of painter Lavinia Fontana and initially apprenticed in Bologna under her father Prospero Fontana, and subsequently with Bartolomeo Cesi. He was not inducted into the Carracci Academy.
- Mariele Ventre
Maria Rachele Ventre (July 16, 1939 - December 16 1995) was an Italian musician and singer, the founder and director of Italian children's choir Piccolo Coro dell'Antoniano.
- Alessandro Algardi
Alessandro Algardi (July 31,1598 - June 10, 1654) was an Italian high-Baroque sculptor active almost exclusively in Rome, where for the latter decades of his life, he was the major rival of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
- Luca Cordero di Montezemolo
Luca Cordero di Montezemolo (born August 31, 1947) is an Italian businessman with an estimated net worth of 400 million dollars, president of Ferrari and chairman of FIAT; he is also president of Italian Confindustria and of FIEG. His name is derived from the family's former title "Marchese di Montezemolo." He is related to Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, who became a cardinal in 2006.
- Giacomo Cipriani
Giacomo Cipriani (born 28 October, 1980 in Bologna) is a Italian football player. He currently plays for Bologna.