History

Lucca was founded as a Roman colony (Luca) in 180 BCE — one of a series of colonies planted in the Po Valley and the Apennines to consolidate the Roman conquest of northern Italy. The city became an important regional centre and a key node on the Via Cassia; it was where Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus met in 56 BCE to renew the First Triumvirate. In late antiquity Lucca was the capital of the Lombard duchy of Tuscany; in the early medieval period it was the most prosperous city in Tuscany, known particularly for its silk industry — the city’s silk merchants traded with Constantinople and the Arab world from the eighth century.

The decision to build new Renaissance walls in 1504 was driven by the development of artillery warfare: the medieval walls (still largely visible within the later structure) were too thin to resist cannon fire. The new walls were designed in the Italian “trace italienne” system (pentagonal bastions that eliminate dead angles) by a series of engineers; the project took 141 years (1504–1645) and was never used in a siege — Lucca’s independence (as a republic from 1369 to 1799) was maintained by diplomacy rather than force. The walls were never breached and are thus intact to their full original height and plan.