Introduction
26km (16 miles) W of Montecatini; 72km (45 miles) W of Florence; 335km (208 miles) NW of Rome
Lucca is the most civilized of Tuscany's cities, a stately grid of Roman roads snug behind a mammoth belt of tree-topped battlements. It's home to Puccini and soft pastel plasters, an elegant landscape of churches and palaces, delicate facades, and Art Nouveau shop fronts on wide promenades. The sure lines of the churches here inspired John Ruskin to study architecture, and though the center isn't the traffic-free Eden many other guidebooks would lead you to believe, cars truly are few and far between. Everyone from rebellious teens to fruit-shopping grandmothers tools around this town atop bicycles.
Lucca's greatest cultural contribution has been musical. The city had a "singing school" as early as A.D. 787, and this crucible of musical prodigies gave the world Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805), the composer who revitalized chamber music in the 18th century with such compositions as...
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Torre Guinigi
Only one of the two towers sprouting from the top of the 14th-century palace, home of Lucca's iron-fisted ruling family, still stands, but it certainly...
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- Landmarks
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Cattedrale di San Martino
The facade of Lucca's Duomo is an excellent and eye-catching example of the Pisan-Lucchese Romanesque school of architecture. Long lines of baby...
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Chiesa e Battistero di San Giovanni e Santa Reparata
The Duomo's Romanesque neighbor has a 16th-century facade and a 12th-century body, but recent excavations have revealed the structure is actually...
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