Lucca

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For the Chrono Trigger character, see Lucca (Chrono Trigger).
Comune di Lucca
Coat of arms of Comune di Lucca
Municipal coat of arms

Location of Lucca in Italy
Country Flag of Italy Italy
Region Tuscany
Province Lucca (LU)
Mayor Mauro Favilla (since June, 11th 2007)
Elevation 19 m (62 ft)
Area 185 km² (71 sq mi)
Population (as of 2006)
 - Total 79,783
 - Density 431/km² (1,116/sq mi)
Time zone CET, UTC+1
Coordinates 43°51′N, 10°30′E
Gentilic Lucchesi
Dialing code 0583
Postal code 55110
Frazioni see list
Patron St. Paulinus
 - Day July 12
Website: www.comune.lucca.it

Lucca is a city in Tuscany, northern central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plain near (but not on) the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca. Among other reasons, it is famous for its intact Renaissance-era city walls (although the city has expanded beyond the wall's boundaries).

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Ancient and medieval city

Autumn in Lucca
Autumn in Lucca

Lucca was founded by the Etruscans (there are traces of a pre-existing Ligurian settlement) and became a Roman colony in 180 BC. The rectangular grid of its historical center preserves the Roman street plan, and the Piazza San Michele occupies the site of the ancient forum. Traces of the amphitheatre can still be seen in the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro.

Frediano, an Irish monk, was bishop of Lucca in the early 5th century.[1] At one point, Lucca was plundered by Odoacer, the first Germanic King of Italy. Lucca was an important city and fortress even in the 6th century, when Narses besieged it for several months in 553. Under the Lombards, it was the seat of a duke who minted his own coins. The Holy Face of Lucca (or Volto Santo), a major relic supposedly carved by Nicodemus, arrived in 742. It became prosperous through the silk trade that began in the 11th century, and came to rival the silks of Byzantium. During the 10-11th centuries Lucca was the capital of the feudal margravate of Tuscany, more or less independent but owing nominal allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor.

After the death of Matilda of Tuscany, the city began to constitute itself an independent commune, with a charter in 1160. For almost 500 years, Lucca remained an independent republic. There were many minor provinces in the region between southern Liguria and northern Tuscany dominated by the Malaspina; Tuscany in this time was a part of feudal Europe. Dante’s Divine Comedy includes many references to the great feudal families who had huge jurisdictions with administrative and judicial rights. Dante spent some of his exile in Lucca.

In 1273 and again in 1277 Lucca was ruled by a Guelph capitano del popolo (captain of the people) named Luchetto Gattilusio. In 1314, internal discord allowed Uguccione della Faggiuola of Pisa to make himself lord of Lucca. The Lucchesi expelled him two years later, and handed over the city to another condottiere Castruccio Castracani, under whose rule it became a leading state in central Italy. Lucca rivalled Florence until Castracani's death in 1328. On 22 and 23 September 1325, in the battle of Altopascio, Castracani defeated Florence's Guelphs. For this he was nominated by Louis IV the Bavarian to become duke of Lucca. Castracani's tomb is in the church of San Francesco. His biography is Machiavelli's third famous book on political rule.

In 1408, Lucca hosted the convocation intended to end the schism in the papacy. Occupied by the troops of Louis of Bavaria, the city was sold to a rich Genoese, Gherardino Spinola, then seized by John, king of Bohemia. Pawned to the Rossi of Parma, by them it was ceded to Martino della Scala of Verona, sold to the Florentines, surrendered to the Pisans, and then nominally liberated by the emperor Charles IV and governed by his vicar. Lucca managed, at first as a democracy, and after 1628 as an oligarchy, to maintain its independence alongside of Venice and Genoa, and painted the word Libertas on its banner until the French Revolution in 1789.[2].

[edit] Republic of Lucca

Palazzo Pfanner, garden view.
Palazzo Pfanner, garden view.

Lucca was the second largest Italian city state (after Venice) with a republican constitution ("comune") to remain independent over the centuries. In 1805, Lucca was taken over by Napoleon, who put his sister Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi in charge as "Queen of Etruria". This affair is commemorated in the famous first sentence of Tolstoy's War and Peace:

"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Bonapartes.(...) And what do you think of this latest comedy, the coronation at Milan, the comedy of the people of Genoa and Lucca laying their petitions [to be annexed to France] before Monsieur Bonaparte, and Monsieur Bonaparte sitting on a throne and granting the petitions of the nations?" (spoken by a thoroughly anti-Bonapartist Russian aristocrat, soon after the news reached St. Petersburg).

After 1815 it became a Bourbon-Parma duchy, then part of Tuscany in 1847 and finally part of the Italian State.

[edit] Frazioni

The municipal territory Lucca includes eighty-one "fractions": Antraccoli, Aquilea, Arancio, Arliano, Arsina, Balbano, Cappella, Carignano, Castagnori, Castiglioncello, Cerasomma, Chiatri, Ciciana, Deccio di Brancoli, Fagnano, Farneta, Gattaiola, Gignano di Brancoli, Maggiano, Massa Pisana, Mastiano, Meati, Monte San Quirico, Montuolo, Mutigliano, Mugnano, Nave, Nozzano, Nozzano San Pietro, Nozzano Vecchia, Ombreglio di Brancoli, Palmata, Piaggione, Piazza di Brancoli, Piazzano, Picciorana, Pieve di Brancoli, Pieve Santo Stefano, Ponte a Moriano, Ponte del Giglio, Ponte San Pietro, Pontetetto, Saltocchio, San Cassiano a Vico, San Cassano di Moriano, San Concordio di Moriano, San Donato, San Filippo, San Gimignano, San Giusto di Brancoli, San Lorenzo a Vaccoli, San Lorenzo di Moriano, San Macario in monte, San Macario in piano, San Michele di Moriano, San Michele in Escheto, San Pancazio, San Pietro a Vico, San Quirico in Moriano, San Vito, Sant'Alessio, Sant'Angelo in Campo, Sant'Ilario di Brancoli, Santa Maria a Colle, Santa Maria del Giudice, Santissima Annunziata, Santo Stefano di Moriano, Sesto di Moriano, Sorbano del Giudice, Sorbano del Vescovo, Stabbiano, Tempagnano di Lunata, Torre, Torre alla Maddalena, Torre Alta, Tramonte, Tramonte di Brancoli, Vallebuia, Vecoli, Vicopelago, Vinchiana.

[edit] Main sights

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Piazza Anfiteatro
Piazza Anfiteatro

The walls around the old town remained intact as the city expanded and modernized, unusual for cities in the region. As the walls lost their military importance, they became a pedestrian promenade which encircled the old town, although they were used for a number of years in the 20th century for racing cars. They are still fully intact today; each of the four principal sides is lined with a different tree species.

The Academy of Sciences (1584) is the most famous of several academies and libraries.

The Casa di Puccini is open to the public. At nearby Torre del Lago there is a Puccini opera festival every year in July/August. Puccini had a house there.

There are many richly built medieval basilica-form churches in Lucca with rich arcaded facades and campaniles, a few as old as the 8th century.

  • Piazza dell'Anfiteatro
  • Piazza Napoleone
  • Piazza San Michele
A close up of the front facade of the San Michele in Foro.
A close up of the front facade of the San Michele in Foro.

[edit] Culture

Lucca is the birthplace of composers Giacomo Puccini (La bohème and Madama Butterfly), Francesco Geminiani, Gioseffo Guami, Luigi Boccherini, and Alfredo Catalani. It is also the birthplace of Bruno Menconi and artist Benedetto Brandimarte.

Lucca annually hosts the Lucca Summer Festival. The 2006 edition saw Eric Clapton, Placebo, Massive Attack, Roger Waters, Tracy Chapman and Santana play live in the Piazza Napoleone.

Lucca, Piazza Anfiteatro
Lucca, Piazza Anfiteatro

[edit] See also

[edit] Twin towns

[edit] Famous Figures

Duomo di San Martino (the Cathedral).
Duomo di San Martino (the Cathedral).

Leo Nomenelli- Pro Football Hall of Famer

[edit] Footnotes

Leo Nomellini- Pro Football Player

  1. ^ See article on Basilica di San Frediano.
  2. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911)

[edit] External links

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Tuscany · Comuni of the Province of Lucca
Tuscany Province of Lucca