Tuscany Tour

Piazza Anfiteatro

L 'amphitheater, the center of the show, born out of the Roman town, is today the center of city life and the very symbol of Lucca, a unique elliptical square, the scene of the existence of Lucca, locked in an embrace of medieval houses and, despite the passing of millennia, still alive and a witness to many changes.

When it was created for shows and gladiator games, the 'amphitheater in Lucca was an imposing structure, which had fifty-four arches and an auditorium that can accommodate ten thousand spectators. Its construction began in the first century AD with the 'Emperor Claudius and ended in the Flavian period, generously financed by a wealthy citizen, as evidenced by an honorary inscription found during excavations in 1800.

In the Middle Ages, when this place became a square, was called "Parlascio" and it was thought that the name derived from the verb "talk" because there were held people's congresses, but in fact it was the mispronunciation of the name "paralisium", "amphitheater "in Latin.

As in many cities, where during the long siege of the medieval Roman structures were transformed into fortresses, the same fate befell all 'amphitheater in Lucca, which, during the Gothic war, under siege by Narsete, was fortified and being sealed with the closure of the external arcade.

When this feature was not even on the surviving structures crumbling row houses that were built or re also building materials and later became a powder, a salt deposit, a prison that became known as "caves", and then stores and restaurants, while the center of the square was divided into portions and used for a certain period of vegetable gardens.

It was in the nineteenth century that an architect from Lucca, Lorenzo Nottolini, revalued the ancient space, making the 'amphitheater an essential framework for the urban layout of the city: the buildings were dismantled over the centuries had crowded into the space of' arena and the new way amphitheater surrounded the old structure.

The city gained a new space so elliptical, which reproduced the same perimeter and the same volumes of the ancient building which was dedicated to the city market, (in fact it was called "Market Square") and the 'amphitheater maintained its original structures with more than two feet deep to the road surface, taking the original arches and vaults re-emerged to the shops facing the square.

Some of the Roman ruins are still visible, along via the Amphitheatre, in buildings that now line the piazza and the lowest of the four arches through which they are accessed, the only remains of the ancient structure.

The walls of Lucca

The walls of Lucca is the largest example in Europe of walls built on the principles of the modern fortress that has been kept fully integrated in a big city. The current walls, about 4 km long and 450 meters, is in fact the result of the last campaign of reconstruction, which started in 1504 and ended only in 1645 according to a plan submitted by Alessandro Farnese from Flanders. Articulated in 12 with eleven bastions and curtains (those bastions in the city) and a platform were not, however, never used to defend against a siege, in contrast to the older belts, since they were conceived as a deterrent now unlikely expansionist ambitions of Florence of the Grand Duchy . The only occasion on which the walls were put to the test was during the disastrous flood of Serchio of 1805 , when the doors were locked and with the help of mattresses and mattresses were secured on a water seal in the center of Lucca. The same Elisa Baciocchi to enter the city was made to hoist with a sort of balance for not opening its doors bolted to the fury of the waters. The boundary wall has been transformed during the ' eight hundred in a pleasant pedestrian promenade, and is, along the ramparts and the lawns in front of the walls, the main city park during the summer for a natural stage for performances and events.