LUCCA, a city of Northern Italy, the chief town of a province, an archiépiscopal see, and the seat of a court of assize, lies 13 miles by rail north-east of Pisa, in 43° 50 r N. lat. and 10° 28' E. long. Situated 50 feet above the level of the sea, in the valley of the Serchio, the city looks out for the most part on a horizon of hills and mountains. The fortifications—pierced by four gates—were commenced in 1504 and completed in 1645, and long ranked among the most remarkable in the peninsula. The city has a well-built and substantial appearance, its chief attraction lying in the numerous churches, which belong in the main to a well-marked basilican type, and present richly decorated exteriors, fine apsidal ends, and quadrangular campaniles. The cathedral or church of St Martin was begun in 1063 by Bishop Anselm; but the great apse with its tall columnar arcades is probably the only remnant of the early edifice. The west front, “built during the first forty years of the 13th century, consists of a vast portico of three magnificent arches, and above them three ranges of open galleries covered with all the devices of an exuberant fancy.” The ground plan is a Latin cross, the nave being 273 feet in length and 84 feet in width, and the transepts 117 feet in length. In the nave is a little octagonal temple or chapel built (1484) by Matteo Civitali, which serves as a shrine for the most precious of the Lucchese relics, a cedar-wood crucifix, carved, according to the legend, by Nicodemus, and miraculously conveyed to Lucca in 782. The Sacred Countenance (Volto Santo), as it is generally called, because the face of the Saviour is considered a true likeness, is only shown thrice a year. The beautiful tomb of Maria Guinigi is described by Ruskin, Modern Painters, ii. ...The church of Saint Michael, founded in the 8th century, and built of marble within and without, has a lofty and magnificent western façade (1188)—an architectural screen rising much above the roof of the church. St Frediano or Frigidian dates originally from the 7th century; the front (of the 13th century) occupies the site of the ancient apse; in one of its chapels is the tomb of Santa Zita, patroness of servants and of Lucca itself. San Giovanni (originally of the 12th century), San Romano (rebuilt in the 17th century, by Vincenzo Buonamici), and Santa Maria Forisportam (of the 13th century) also deserve to be mentioned. Among the secular buildings are the old ducal palace, begun in 1578 by Ammanati, and now the residence of the prefect and seat of the provincial officers and the public picture gallery; the Palazzo Pretorio, or former residence of the podesth, now the seat of the civil and correctional courts; the palace, erected in the 15th century by a member of the great Guinigi family, and now serving as a poorhouse; and the 16th century palace of the Marquis Guidiccioni, now used as a depository for the archives. The principal market-place in the city {Piazza del Mercato) has taken possession of the arena of the ancient amphitheatre, the arches of which can still be seen in the surrounding buildings. Besides the academy of sciences just mentioned, 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 silk manufacture, which was introduced at Lucca about the close of the 11th century, and in the early part of the 16th became for a time 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. Tn 1871 the city had 21,286 inhabitants. The commune has increased from 61,175 in 1834 to 68,063 in 1881.
Lucca (Latin, Luca) is probably a place of Ligurian origin. First mentioned as the place to which Sempronius retired (218 b.c. ) before the victorious Hannibal, it passes out of sight again till 177, when it became the seat of a Roman colony. In the time of Julius Caesar it is frequently heard of as a town in his province of Cisalpine Gaul and Liguria, to λvhich he repaired for consultation with his political associates. By Augustus it was transferred to Etruria. Though plundered and deprived of part of its territory by Odoacer, Lucca appears as an important city and fortress at the time of N arses, and under the Lombards it λvas 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 miles round. Internal discord afforded an opportunity to Uguccione della Faggiola to make himself master of Lucca in 1314; but the Lucchese expelled him two years afterwards, and handed over their city to Castrudcio, under whose masterly tyranny it became “for a moment the leading state of Italy.” Occupied by the troops of Louis of Bavaria, sold to a rich Genovese Gherardo Spinola, seized by John, king of Bohemia, pawned to the Rossi of Parma, sold to the Florentines, surrendered to the Pisans, nominally liberated by the emperor Charles IV., and governed by his vicar, Lucca was subjected to endless vicissitudes, but 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 Baciocchi, 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, gradually acquired a variety of exceptional marks of distinction, such as the pallium in 1120, and the archiepiscopal cross from Alexander II.; and at length in 1726 Benedict XIII. raised their see to the rank of an archbishopric, without suffragans.
See Memοrieper servit e alia storia del ducato di Lucca, published by the Lucca Academy; Mazzaιosa, S.toιia di Lucca, Lucca, 1833; Repetti, Diιioηario della Toscana, Florence, 1835; Freeman, Hist, and Arch. Sketches, London, 1876.
LUCCA, Baths of(Bagni di Lucca, formerly Bagno a Corsena), a commune of Italy in the province of Lucca, containing a number of famous watering-places. They 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 Vai di Lima. Ponte Serraglio (16 miles to the north of Lucca) is the principal village; but there are warm springs and baths also at Villa, Docce Bassi, Bagno Caldo, &c. Bagno a Corsena is mentioned in 1284 by Guidone da Corvaia, a Pisan historian (Muratori, vol. xxii.); and by the 16th century the waters had attained great celebrity. 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 96° to 133° 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 considerable hospital, constructed largely at the expense of Nicholas Demidoff in 1826. The population of the commune was 11,000 in 1881.
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