Paper and silk; gold and diamonds

Today, we took a trip down memory lane and re-visited Lucca: a tall brown stone city with interesting piazzas, palazzos and churches that reveal a history of great wealth, a city surrounded by wide expansive low walls that are delightful for a passegiata at any time of the day.

Lucca comes from the word 'Luk', meaning 'a place of water', and has had easy access to water way back into Etruscan times. Which explains how, over the centuries, it has become a huge manufacturing producer of paper, which needs considerable water for its production. First, in the 1300's, Lucca made vellum from sheep and animal skins. Sheets of these finely pressed skins were bound into accounting books for the city merchants. Lucca then moved to making writing material from rags: ground, pressed and dried. But, in the 1800's a pharmacist, by accident, discovered a formula for yellow packaging paper: a combination of straw, mortar and water. So huge did this trade become for the local economy that Lucca ended up setting the price for raw materials for it, for much of Europe at the time. But the lobbies out to protect water as an environmental resource were such that the demand for yellow paper gradually diminished, at which point Lucca took up the challenge and, began, in the 1970s, making tissue paper and corrugated board, up there with the best in the world. With some 200 factories still today. 

Parallel to this, Lucca's prime location near two rivers has made it of strategic importance since its early days. It was so important that three powerful Roman leaders arranged to meet here in 55BC to discuss Rome's direction and strategies: Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great and Marcus Craccus--at what came to be called the First Triumvirate, planning the Empire. Lucca, then, would have had many typical Roman features behind its city walls and along its grid-like streets, which today have changed character. 

The elliptical shape of the old Roman Amphitheatre is still visible, but these days, it has been converted into connected blocks of high rise apartments overlooking a vast piazza where gladiators once ruled and crowds once roared. Today it is thickly carpeted with boulevard restaurants and bars, shaded by umbrellas: a hangout for tourists sipping wine and and twirling pasta. Or eating a typical Luccan sweet bread, Buccellato, from the panificio display.

Silk became a big seller as did precious stones in centuries past; and Lucca's merchants became wealthy, their banks serviced Europe; their palazzos grew more beautiful; their architecture more extraordinary. The Guinigi tower-house, built by one of the wealthy silk merchants in the 1300s, its oak trees growing out of its rooftop gardens, stands high amongst them. 

Their churches, including the beautiful San Michele in Foro, which was built on the ruins of the old Roman forum, were highly embellished. San Michele in Foro, with highly decorative columns, blind arcades and loggias, has Saint Michael the Archangel flanked by two angel statues, one of which, so goes the tale, wore a huge diamond, given that the town was so rich. 

Then, thanks to Elisa, Bonaparte's sister, who inherited Lucca's rule after Napolean's invasion in the 1800s, followed by Maria Luisa, newly appointed Duchess of Lucca who arrived on Viareggio's shore in a beautiful sailing ship of white and gold enroute to taking up residence in the Ducal Palace there--Lucia was treated gently in subsequent times. Arts and culture were encouraged, money was spent on education, the walls and moats of the city were renovated and beautified, turned into public spaces that are still used today for the passeggiata. 

Lucca, where Caesar, Pompey and Marcus Craccus held the strategic First Triumvirate

Apartments around the elliptical shape of the old Roman Amphitheatre

Buccellato, a characteristic Lucca sweet bread

Guinigi tower house, built by a wealthy silk merchant has oak trees growing in its rooftop garden

A different perspective on Guinigi tower

So wealthy was Lucca that Saint Michael the Archangel, the church's namesake and central statue,  is said to have worn a huge diamond

Lucca city gate

Maria Luisa arrived on Viareggio's shore, to begin her rule as a Duchess at the Ducal Palace, in a sailing ship in beautiful colours of white and gold 

Artisan pastry at Lucca

Immensity of the city walls

Our favourite avenue of trees this trip