16 Facts About Lucca

Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea.

Territory of present-day Lucca was certainly settled by the Etruscans, having traces of an probable earlier Ligurian presence, dating from 3rd century BC.

At one point, Lucca was plundered by Odoacer, the first Germanic King of Italy.

Lucca was an important city and fortress even in the sixth century, when Narses besieged it for several months in 553.

Lucca cloth was a silk fabric that was woven with gold or silver threads.

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Lucca became prosperous through the silk trade that began in the eleventh century, and came to rival the silks of Byzantium.

From 1073 to 1086, the bishop of Lucca was his nephew Anselm II, a prominent figure in the Investiture Controversy.

In 1273 and again in 1277, Lucca was ruled by a Guelph capitano del popolo named Luchetto Gattilusio.

Lucca's biography is Machiavelli's third famous book on political rule.

In 1408, Lucca hosted a convocation organized by Pope Gregory XII with his cardinals intended to end the schism in the papacy.

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 until the French Revolution in 1789.

Lucca had been the second largest Italian city state with a republican constitution to remain independent over the centuries.

However, already in 1805 the Republic of Lucca was converted into a monarchy by Napoleon, who installed his sister Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi as "Princess of Lucca".

The only reigning dukes of Lucca were Maria Luisa of Spain, who was succeeded by her son Charles II, Duke of Parma in 1824.

Lucca is the birthplace of composers Giacomo Puccini, Nicolao Dorati, Francesco Geminiani, Gioseffo Guami, Luigi Boccherini, and Alfredo Catalani.

Since 2004, Lucca is home to IMT Lucca, a public research institution and a selective graduate school and part of the Superior Graduate Schools in Italy .