Un Giro in Lucca

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While I'm starting to get the bug bad for visting the rest of the country, on Tuesday I set off with my cousin Arianna to visit the local town of Lucca by foot and on bike. Lucca has, among its narrow, narrow streets, once protective walls, and many piazzas, famously 100 chaese, or churches. Its history goes back a long ways, as you can imagine, and I will get into the walls and some of the history as I learn to translate the local story from Italian.

I learned a little about the history of the competitive development of churches in Lucca. As some of my pictures show the size of churches and especially their connected torre (towers) were a sign of power, and of course wealth. Over the years, when local people of power got into trouble, they essentially "bought off" their local priests by building them new churches. Although the Catholic Church itself built the largest free standing churches, these privately constructed ones were often attached to their residences. So essentially, Lucca has, so they say, 100 churches for a pretty small area.

The outer, or terza (third) mura (wall) is the most prominent, however signs of the second and first wall (just a few feet) remain. More on this later, as I mentioned.

Here's a little fun with video, and a taste of my experience in Lucca...

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Photos

Church of S. Maria Bianca
Built between the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th. The red brick walls were raised in the 16th century.

La mura terzo di Lucca
This is a tactical defensive post on the wall above a point of entry that comes out of an ascending tunnel to the right of where I took this picture from.

Passagio
(Cammino di San Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer"

La mura terzo di Lucca
This was the third and final defensive wall built around Lucca some 1,800 years ago. Upon its construction, the attacks on Lucca were finally put to rest.

San Frediano
Although the church was reconstructed, enlarged several times, and repositioned several times as well from the 12th-16th centuries, the facade in its current state provides the best example of local Romanesque.

Guinigi Tower
The Case Guinigi and the Guinigi Tower represent a marvellous example of Medieaval architecture in Lucca. The Case Guinigi were a group of mansions and towers where one of the most important families of the town, the Guinigi, lived. Paolo Guinigi ruled the town during the first half of the XV century. Today only one of the four original towers still survives and it may be visited. It is 44.25 m high and was made with brick, sandstone from Matraia and Verrucano from the Monti Pisani. It was started in 1384. From the top of the tower, where seven holm-oaks grow, a wonderful view of the town and the countryside may be enjoyed.

Inside the Roman Anfitheatre
This piazza was reconstructed on the basement foundation of a Roman structure in 1830 after the previous incarnation built outside the walls during the 1st and 2nd centuries had gone to waste and ruin during the Barbaric invasions.

Church of San Giusto
I enjoyed a glass of Tuscan wine and chips across Piazza San Giusto from this facade the other night.

The Cathedral
According to tradition, the Cathedral is the second remake of a primitive church of San Martino. The facade, which you can see here, is the result of a long remake that spanned the 12th through 15th centuries, and is still "unfinished". I read that in the last arch area, there is an inscription that reads "Guidetto da Como worked here in 1257"...!