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What to see and do in Lucca
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The
walls of Lucca - 500 years of history
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Not only four kilometres
of history and city life. In Lucca the walls have given
much more: the first bike ride, the first race, falls with
skates, the first love. The locals all grew up with this great
protective wall, which embraces the city as a good giant. Part
of an ancient war car, born with ancient Rome, rebuilt in
the middle of the Renaissance, the walls have become a
large city park among the most evocative in the world.
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They are maintained with passion by the people of Lucca, who
have also created a foundation, Opera delle Mura di Lucca,
brick after brick, tree after tree, today are intrinsic
elements of the landscape and daily life and attraction for
tourists.
As already stated in the verses of D' Annunciation in the
early twentieth century:
«You see grey olive groves on a long way
vaporising the face to the hillocks, or Serchio,
and the city by the arborated circle,
where the Guinigi woman sleeps[....]».
(Gabriele D'Annunzio,
Elettra, da La Città del silenzio, 1903)
 Imagine
walking on a wide, circular and tree-lined path with
high horse chestnut trees, plane trees, poplars, lime
trees, lime trees, 12 metres high on a grassy meadow
that once constituted the moat, between eleven bulwarks
and six gates leading to the historic heart of the city,
which we remember over 2000 years ago (we want to go
back to its Roman origins, if not Imagine yourself in
one of the northern bastions, between young people
intent on jogging, or simply walking, and elderly people
sitting in one of the benches that are gradually free:
on your right the marvel of red roofs and ancient
ochre-coloured palaces, and with the bell tower
of the church of San Frediano to beat the hours; on
the other side an immense green mantle, the rest of the
tree-lined perimeter that curves around the city, and in
the distance the Apuan Alps that rise above the
background. A unique panorama!
 In
2013 the city hosted a series of events in honor of
the 500 years of life of the Walls of Lucca; it
was the year 1513 and the then Republic of Lucca
decided to expand and rebuild the previous medieval
walls, which proved inadequate and insufficient to
contain a possible siege outside. Born and maintained
for defensive purposes, the walls of Lucca never had the
opportunity to serve their function. In the history of
the city there was never any siege or attempt at
invasion.
 The
walls of Lucca have a fascinating history. They were
initially built by the Romans, around 180 BC, to
surround from north to south and from west to east the
current Via San Giorgio, Corso Garibaldi, Via Galli
Tassi and Via della Cittadella, Via della Rosa and Via
dell' Angelo Custode. Via Veneto, via Calderia and via
degli Asili formed the so-called Cardus Maximus,
while the Via San Paolino, Via Roma and Via Santa Croce
were tasked with tracing the Decumanus Maximus,
which then crossed with the Roman forum of Lucca,
the centre of the urban nucleus, which can be found
today in Piazza San Michele, for this reason also
called San Michele in Foro. After the Roman one
another circle of walls was built, which became
necessary in particular after the destruction of large,
older sections (already in bad condition) by the
Marquis Boniface of Tuscany (X century) and the new
threat represented by Frederick I (Federico
Barbarossa, as he's known in Italy), Holy Roman
Emperor and the advance of his soldiers. The medieval
walls of Lucca were integrated into the remains of
the previous Roman walls, through the restoration of
embankments and ditches, according to a defensive
technique that in the period was spreading in several
other Italian cities, expanding to include the peasant
villages that had gradually formed outside the walls.
 The
current circle of walls of Lucca dates back to the
Renaissance period. It was 1491 and Porta San
Pietro, Porta dei Borghi and Porta San Gervaso, remained
from the previous medieval walls, which were deemed
insufficient to meet the new defensive needs of the
city. The peremptory need for new modernizations was
born, according to basic new fortification techniques.
The same citizens are even involved in the construction,
according to an ordinance called' commanded', it was
necessary to enrol in the works. However, the
reconstruction was not complete and it was completed in
the following century (there were several projects and
contributions, those undocumented by Matteo Civitali
and Francesco di Giorgio Martini, or those of
military engineers such as Galeazzo Alghisi,
Baldassare Lanci, Francesco Paciotto or
Alessandro Farnese (duke of Parma and Piacenza,
which history recalls as one of the greatest leaders of
the sixteenth century).
Better engineers and a lot of work for a siege that actually
never took place. The only danger came in fact from the
Serchio river, and from its flooding in 1812,
which never reached the town centre because it was stopped
by the city walls.
 Still
today, more splendid than ever, the Walls survive
thanks to the "Lucchesi" and to the feminine
sensibility of two women: the first, Elisa Baciocchi
Bonaparte, Napoleon's sister, Princess of Lucca and
Piombino and governor of Tuscany, who ruled Lucca from
1805 to 1814 and with various urban planning
interventions extended the perimeter of the walls to
include the current Porta Elisa, on the side
facing
Florence. The second, Maria Luisa di
Borbone, Duchess of Lucca and Queen of Etruria, in
Lucca from 1814 to 1824, who was responsible for the
definitive turning point and that is to convert to civil
use the defensive garrison of the city (at the time
entrusted to the architect Lorenzo Nottolini,
originally from Capannori, and also known for having
rebuilt the Piazza Anfiteatro). Imagine a
majestic war machine with casements, positions for 130
cannons, crowded posts filled with soldiers, patrols and
sentinels, suddenly becoming one of the most elegant
green walking spaces in the city and a place of
entertainment envied by the whole of Europe. Four
kilometres and 232 metres of walls, six gates (Santa
Maria, San Jacopo, Elisa, San Pietro, Sant' Anna and San
Donato), eleven ramparts, various small houses and still
more, towers, reinforcements, moat (of which it is still
possible to see the track), throneers, tronieri, earfuls
(the rounded side of the bulwarks), niches for the
shelter of canons, garrisons and quant In fact, the
transformation was not a real improvisation, since the
loss of the defensive function had already produced in
some parts of the enclosure some garden and garden too
much. Having said that, in 1840 the custom was to go and
pick up ice cream at the Cafè delle Mura, the
goal of the most loved walk in Lucca, the same still in
activity today.
As then, today, through the comfortable and short descents
from the hills, you can easily reach the main points of
Lucca's urban touristic itinerary: churches such as
San Frediano, the Duomo, San Michele in Foro,
and the splendid Piazza Anfiteatro, the tree-lined
Giunigi Tower, the Botanical Garden and the
splendid Garden of Palazzo Pfanner, Villa Bottini
and the Cloisters of San Micheletto. Please refer to
the reader for a list of the relevant pages
What to see and do in Lucca
for a complete list.
 With
the Italian Unification, the walls were not
dismantled, they were now an exceptional urban icon,
preserved by the municipal administration for the
identity and memory of the city. The image has not
changed much since the distant Renaissance period, since
that half millennium ago; it was not that today the long
tree-lined avenue sees the passing of the journey of
young people, children, elderly, and families of various
languages, are not Italian but many, many foreigners.
A pride for the city are also are also the many events
and festivals of Lucca scheduled in the rich annual
season of the city (first of all the famous
Lucca Comics, between October and November every
year). The House of the Executioner of Tommaso Jona
has been restructured and opened to the public, even if he
was left in fact without a job, since he has never been
assigned any work (luckily). Well, the structure has been
transformed into a museum dedicated precisely to the history
of the walls, Lucca and the
Via Francigena, which in the city
since ancient times has found one of the places where
pilgrims must pass to
Rome. We hope that the walkway is also long,
like an embrace that from history to the future, between the
branches of the foothills, like a long balcony overlooking
the city.
Back Up
Ostelli Lucca
Ostelli Italia
Auberges de Jeunesse
Italie Hotel
Lucca
Carte Lucques
Karte von Lucca
Mapa Lucca
Map of Lucca
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de la Toscane
Karte von Toskana
Mapa Toscana
Map of Tuscany
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Karte von Italien
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Map of Italy
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