Lucca: history and what to see

The Etruscans settled the Serchio plain, while Ligurian tribes lived nearby. Both peoples were here before Rome arrived. The name Lucca may come from a Ligurian or Celtic word for marshy ground. That fits the damp plain between the Serchio and the now-vanished Auser river. The Romans adapted the existing name to Luca.

Rome founded the colony of Luca in 180 BC, on its frontier with Liguria. In 89 BC, its residents became Roman citizens. The army laid out the town as a grid of streets crossing at right angles. That grid survives in the northern half of the old town. Via Fillungo follows the main north–south street, and Piazza San Michele occupies the old forum.

The other great Roman survival is a shape. A second-century amphitheater outside the walls was quarried for stone and built over, but medieval houses followed its curve. The ellipse survives as Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, about three meters above the original arena floor.

Luca also has a walk-on part in the collapse of the Roman Republic. In 56 BC, Julius Caesar, Pompey and Crassus met here to patch up the First Triumvirate. Luca sat inside Cisalpine Gaul, the province Caesar governed, so he could meet his rivals without leaving his command.

From the late sixth century, Lombard rulers made Lucca the capital of Tuscia, a territory covering much of Tuscany. They also began the mint that produced Luccan coins, with interruptions, until 1843.

Charlemagne conquered the Lombards in 774. Frankish margraves replaced the dukes but kept Lucca as their capital. The Via Francigena pilgrimage road passed through the city. Archbishop Sigeric recorded Lucca as a stop on his journey to Rome in AD 990.

Pilgrims came to see the Volto Santo, or Holy Face. It is a life-size wooden crucifix showing Christ in a robe. Legend said Nicodemus carved it. Modern tests date the surviving sculpture to about 770–880. This makes it one of the oldest wooden sculptures in the West. Lucca still honors it with a candlelit procession every 13 September.

When Matilda of Canossa died in 1115, Lucca seized the chance to govern itself. The city bought the remaining feudal rights in 1160. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa confirmed its self-government two years later.

Silk paid for that freedom. From the eleventh century, Lucca built western Europe’s first major silk industry. Its damasks and gold-thread brocades reached French fairs and the papal court. Lucchese merchants also ran banks in Bruges, Paris and London.

Merchant wealth rose into the skyline. Families built tower-houses as strongrooms and symbols of status. Sources disagree on how many stood at once, but there were dozens. Most were shortened in the sixteenth century. Torre Guinigi survived.

Pisa seized Lucca in 1314. The mercenary commander Castruccio Castracani then turned it into a regional military power. After his death, Lucca spent forty years under changing foreign rulers.

In 1369, Lucca bought its freedom back from Emperor Charles IV. The restored republic would remain independent until Napoleon ended it in 1805.

Paolo Guinigi ruled as lord from 1400 until citizens arrested him in 1430. Afterwards, a small circle of wealthy families controlled the republic. A council of elders, the Anziani, governed under a chief official called the Gonfaloniere. Their terms lasted only weeks, limiting any one person’s power.

Lucca stayed safe by avoiding open fights. It stopped trying to gain more land, paid for protection and spent money on talks and strong walls. Its motto was one word: Libertas, meaning freedom.

Lucca already had Roman and medieval walls when the republic began a new circuit on 7 May 1504. Building lasted until 1648. The finished ring measured 4,223 meters and stood about 12 meters high. Eleven arrow-shaped bastions and thick earth banks absorbed cannon fire.

No army ever tested these defenses. Today the complete circuit survives, making it one of the clearest places to understand the republic’s caution and wealth.

The Congress of Vienna created the Duchy of Lucca for Maria Luisa di Borbone, a Spanish Bourbon princess. During her reign, Lucca gained the botanical garden and Lorenzo Nottolini’s aqueduct. In the 1820s, she also planted the walls with trees and opened them as a public promenade. Nottolini reshaped Piazza dell’Anfiteatro into the ellipse seen today.

Lucca joined the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1847. Tuscany then joined the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1860, followed by the new Kingdom of Italy in 1861. After seven centuries, Lucca no longer ran its own affairs.

Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca in 1858, into a family of cathedral musicians. He moved to Torre del Lago in 1891. There he wrote most of his famous operas, and he is buried inside his villa.

Industry replaced some of the wealth once made from silk. Paper mills and olive oil became important. Then war reached the province. On 12 August 1944, SS troops murdered about 560 civilians at Sant’Anna di Stazzema. Lucca itself escaped major destruction. Partisans entered first, followed by the American 92nd Infantry Division on 5 September.

After the war, Lucca protected its walls and restricted cars in much of the historic center. Tourism now drives the city. The Summer Festival fills Piazza Napoleone in July, while Lucca Comics & Games takes over the center in late October.