The
La Spezia–Rimini Line (also known as the
Massa–Senigallia Line), in the
linguistics of the
Romance languages, is a line that demarcates a number of important
isoglosses that distinguish Romance languages south and east of the line from Romance languages north and west of it. Romance languages on the eastern half of it include
Italian and the
Eastern Romance languages (
Romanian,
Aromanian,
Megleno-Romanian,
Istro-Romanian), whereas
Spanish,
French,
Catalan,
Portuguese as well as
Gallo‒Italic languages are representatives of the
western group. It has been suggested that the origin of these developments is to be found in the last decades of the
Western Roman Empire and the
Ostrogothic Kingdom (–535
AD). During this period, the area of Italy north of the line was dominated by an increasingly
Germanic Roman army of (Northern) Italy, followed by the
Ostrogoths; whereas the
Roman Senate and
Chalcedonian Christianity became the dominant social elements south of the line. As for the provinces outside Italy, the social influences in Gaul and Iberia were broadly similar to those in
Northern Italy, whereas the
Balkans were dominated by the
Byzantine Empire at this time (and later, by
Slavic peoples).