ancient amphitheatre, the outer arches of which can still be seen in the surrounding buildings. The whole building, belonging probably to the early Empire, measured 135 by 105 yds., and the arena 8712 by 58 yds. The outline of the ancient theatre can be traced in the Piazza delle Grazie, and some of its substructure walls are preserved. The ancient forum was on the site of the Piazza S. Michele in the centre of the town; remains of a small public building or shrine were found not far off in 1906 (L. Pernier in Notizie degli Scavi, 1906, p. 117). The rectangular disposition of the streets in the centre of the town is a survival of Roman times. Besides the academy of sciences, which dates from 1584, there are several institutions of the same kind—a royal philomathic academy, a royal academy of arts and a public library of 50,000 volumes. The archiepiscopal library and archives are also important, while the treasury contains some fine goldsmith’s work, including the 14th-century Croce dei Pisani, made by the Pisans for the cathedral.
The river Serchio affords water-power for numerous factories. The most important industries are the manufacture of jute goods (carried on at Ponte a Moriano in the Serchio valley, 6 m. N. of Lucca), tobacco, silks and cottons. The silk manufacture, introduced at Lucca about the close of the 11th century, and in the early part of the 16th the means of subsistence for 30,000 of its inhabitants, now gives employment (in reeling and throwing) to only about 1500. The bulk of the population is engaged in agriculture. The water supply is maintained by an aqueduct built in 1823–1832 with 459 arches, from the Pisan mountains.
The ancient Luca, commanding the valley of the Serchio, is first mentioned as the place to which Sempronius retired in 218 B.C. before Hannibal; but there is some doubt as to the correctness of Livy’s statement, for, though there were continual wars with the Ligurians, after this time, it is not mentioned again until we are told that in 177 B.C. a Latin colony was founded there in territory offered by the Pisans for the purpose.[1] It must have become a municipium by the lex Julia of 90 B.C., and it was here that Julius Caesar in 56 B.C. held his famous conference with Pompey and Crassus, Luca then being still in Liguria, not in Etruria. A little later a colony was conducted hither by the triumvirs or by Octavian; whether after Philippi or after Actium is uncertain. In the Augustan division of Italy Luca was assigned to the 7th region (Etruria); it is little mentioned in the imperial period except as a meeting-point of roads—to Florentia (see Clodia, Via), Luna and Pisae. The road to Parma given in the itineraries, according to some authorities, led by Luna and the Cisa pass (the route taken by the modern railway from Sarzana to Parma), according to others up the Serchio valley and over the Sassalbo pass (O. Cuntz in Jahreshefte des oesterr. arch. Instituts, 1904, 53). Though plundered and deprived of part of its territory by Odoacer, Luca appears as an important city and fortress at the time of Narses, who besieged it for three months in A.D. 553, and under the Lombards it was the residence of a duke or marquis and had the privilege of a mint. The dukes gradually extended their power over all Tuscany, but after the death of the famous Matilda the city began to constitute itself an independent community, and in 1160 it obtained from Welf VI., duke of Bavaria and marquis of Tuscany, the lordship of all the country for 5 m. round, on payment of an annual tribute. Internal discord afforded an opportunity to Uguccione della Faggiuola, with whom Dante spent some time there, to make himself master of Lucca in 1314, but the Lucchesi expelled him two years afterwards, and handed over their city to Castruccio Castracane, under whose masterly tyranny it became “for a moment the leading state of Italy,” until his death in 1328 (his tomb is in S. Francesco). Occupied by the troops of Louis of Bavaria, sold to a rich Genoese Gherardino Spinola, seized by John, king of Bohemia, pawned to the Rossi of Parma, by them ceded to Martino della Scala of Verona, sold to the Florentines, surrendered to the Pisans, 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 till the French Revolution.” In the beginning of the 16th century one of its leading citizens, Francesco Burlamacchi, made a noble attempt to give political cohesion to Italy, but perished on the scaffold (1548); his statue by Ulisse Cambi was erected on the Piazza San Michele in 1863. As a principality formed in 1805 by Napoleon in favour of his sister Elisa and her husband Bacchiocchi, Lucca was for a few years wonderfully prosperous. It was occupied by the Neapolitans in 1814; from 1816 to 1847 it was governed as a duchy by Maria Luisa, queen of Etruria, and her son Charles Louis; and it afterwards formed one of the divisions of Tuscany.
The bishops of Lucca, who can be traced back to 347, received exceptional marks of distinction, such as the pallium in 1120, and the archiepiscopal cross from Alexander II. In 1726 Benedict XIII. raised their see to the rank of an archbishopric, without suffragans.
See A. Mazzarosa, Storia di Lucca (Lucca, 1833); E. Ridolfi, L’Arte in Lucca studiata nella sua Cattedrale (1882); Guidi di Lucca; La Basilica di S. Michele in Foro in Lucca. (T. As.)
LUCCA, BAGNI DI (Baths of Lucca, formerly Bagno a Corsena), a commune of Tuscany, Italy, in the province of Lucca, containing a number of famous watering-places. Pop. (1901) 13,685. The springs are situated in the valley of the Lima, a tributary of the Serchio; and the district is known in the early history of Lucca as the Vicaria di Val di Lima. Ponte Serraglio (16 m. N. of Lucca by rail) is the principal village (pop. 1312), but there are warm springs and baths also at Villa, Docce Bassi, Bagno Caldo, &c. The springs do not seem to have been known to the Romans. Bagno a Corsena is first mentioned in 1284 by Guidone de Corvaia, a Pisan historian (Muratori, R.I.S. vol. xxii.). Fallopius, who gave them credit for the cure of his own deafness, sounded their praises in 1569; and they have been more or less in fashion since. The temperature of the water varies from 98° to 130° Fahr.; in all cases it gives off carbonic acid gas and contains lime, magnesium and sodium products. In the village of Bagno Caldo there is a hospital constructed largely at the expense of Nicholas Demidoff in 1826. In the valley of the Serchio, 3 m. below Ponte a Serraglio, is the medieval Ponte del Diavolo (1322) with its lofty central arch.
LUCCEIUS, LUCIUS, Roman orator and historian, friend and
correspondent of Cicero. A man of considerable wealth and
literary tastes, he may be compared with Atticus. Disgusted
at his failure to become consul in 60, he retired from public
life, and devoted himself to writing a history of the Social and
Civil Wars. This was nearly completed, when Cicero earnestly
requested him to write a separate history of his (Cicero’s) consulship.
Cicero had already sung his own praises in both Greek
and Latin, but thought that a panegyric by Lucceius, who had
taken considerable interest in the affairs of that critical period,
would have greater weight. Cicero offered to supply the material,
and hinted that Lucceius need not sacrifice laudation to accuracy.
Lucceius almost promised, but did not perform. Nothing
remains of any such work or of his history. In the civil war
he took the side of Pompey; but, having been pardoned by
Caesar, returned to Rome, where he lived in retirement until
his death.
Cicero’s Letters (ed. Tyrrell and Purser), especially Ad Fam. v. 12; and Orelli, Onomasticon Tullianum.
LUCCHESINI, GIROLAMO (1751–1825), Prussian diplomatist, was born at Lucca on the 7th of May 1751, the eldest son of Marquis Lucchesini. In 1779 he went to Berlin where Frederick the Great gave him a court appointment, making use of him in his literary relations with Italy. Frederick William II., who recognized his gifts for diplomacy, sent him in 1787 to Rome to obtain the papal sanction for the appointment of a coadjutor to the bishop of Mainz, with a view to strengthening the German Fürstenbund. In 1788 he was sent to Warsaw, and brought about a rapprochement with Prussia and a diminution of Russian influence at Warsaw. He was accredited ambassador to the king and republic of Poland on the 12th of April 1789.
- ↑ Some confusion has arisen owing to the similarity of the names Luca and Luna; the theory of E. Bormann in Corp. Inscrip. Latin. (Berlin, 1888), xi. 295 is here followed.
