Tuscany Holiday rent BLOG

View of Lucca

Bastion of San Colombano

Lucca is celebrating the 150^th anniversary of the Italian Unification with five exhibitions, a website offering a virtual tour as well as a real itinerary through town uniting some of the most important monuments connected to the Risorgimento period. From the Bastion of San Colombano to the historic Record Office, from the State Library to the Museum of Villa Mansi: a combination of memorable sights.

The Guinigi Tower

The event traces the different phases of the Italian Risorgimento through the study of the genesis of the events and fate of some monuments, highlighting the different ways in which the people of Lucca perceived and interpreted the message of unification between 1861 and the end of the 19^th century. Not only documents and images centring on the protective walls of town but also a website with spectacular 360° images of important sights of town: from the Clock Tower to the Guinigi Tower with its oak trees on top, from the Princes’ Hall to the Savoia Hall, to discover the secret city.

The promenade on the walls

The first of five exhibitions concentrates on the transformation of the town’s walls into a promenade during the rule of Elisa and Felice Baciocchi. Modified to reduce their “warlike” aspect in the beginning of the 19^th century, the drawbridges at Saint Maria’s Gate and Saint Donato’s Gate were replaced with a walled road and a new gate, Gate Elisa, was opened on the East side of the walls, those facing Florence. The final transformation of the walls into a public promenade included an extension of the same flanked by elm trees. It was Maria Luisa of Spain, Duchess of Lucca from 1815 to 1824, who set up a special ‘Public Embellishment Court’, also taking care of restoring and embellishing the walls, in the attempt to transform the town into a small capital.

San Michele in Foro

Another exhibition lingers over the restoration works on the front façade of San Michele In Foro. Started in 1866, the same year the Town Council of Lucca purchased the walls, the works, directed by the architect Giuseppe Pardini, were necessary because the façade was seriously dilapidated. Encouraged by the celebrations of the Italian Unification, Pardini sustained the need to represent some of the men who had contributed to the history of Italy by social and national progress. For this reason Pope Pius IX and Napoleon III are portrayed alongside King Vittorio Emanuele II and Camillo Benso di Cavour, whereas in the second order of small arches Carlo Alberto di Savoia, Bettino Ricasoli and Napoleon I complete the political picture. Beside them, not very appropriately,also the unmistakable face of Dante Alighieri.

Detail of the façade, Dante

All the other figures represented in the busts on the façade come from medieval history, theology, literature and science. In the fourth order of small arches we find the saints, whereas the third order contains Alessandro Volta, Christopher Columbus, to create a pantheon of heroes, politicians and wise men but to meet with stiff compromise and at least satisfy the members of the commission supervising the restoration works, the façade lost its uniformity and became a confused “pastiche”.

The sarcophagus of Ilaria del Carretto

Another important event happening during the period of the Italian Unification and today related for the celebration regards one of the towns works of art. When Lucca became a province of the Kingdom of Italy, the sarcophagus of Ilaria del Carretto, a masterpiece by Jacopo della Quercia, was lying, almost forgotten, resting against the north wall of the north transept of the Cathedral. A position chosen for the lack of one of the long sides of the casing, separated from the monument as long ago as 1544. Discovered in the cellar of the Guinigi Palace approximately at the beginning of 1828, this piece was sold to the antiquarian Pietro dal Poggetto. In February of the same year Antonio Mazzarosa proposed purchasing this piece to the then Minister of Internal Affairs. The request was not accepted and the antiquarian was thus able to sell the panel to the Florentine Paolo Casagrande who, in turn, sold it to Giovanni Dini. From the latter it passed to the Uffizi Gallery. The question of the tomb panel, never forgotten by the people of Lucca, once again came to light in 1874 in an article signed R (Enrico Ridolfi?) which recalled, as an example of poor administration, precisely the incident of “one side of the casing of the very fine sarcophagus of Ilaria del Carretto”.

Detail of the sarcophagus of Ilaria del Carretto

From that time on, difficult and lengthy dealings began between the local Fine Arts Consulting Commission and the Government, in order to bring back to Lucca the missing panel which, in the meantime, had been transferred to the Bargello National Museum. It was only returned in 1887, thanks to the constant efforts of Enrico Ridolfi, who had been appointed Deputy Director of the Royal Galleries of Florence in 1885. This is the subject of another exhibition held in Lucca for the celebration of the Italian Unification.

The walls seen from Bastion San Regolo

These and much more are going on in Lucca until March 17^th. Link to one of our holiday accommodations in Lucca.

The beautiful walled town of Lucca is hosting another interesting exhibition until the 31^st January at the Guinigi Palace.  “The Silk Road” comprises over 130 masterpieces of textile art to relate the millennial history of the relationship between East and West. A shiny silk thread, long 8 thousand km, that unites the cities of Lucca to Hangzhou in China, the historical capital of silk production and distribution. The Silk Road is an exhibition full of colour, charm and magic which makes the visitor understand the real size and importance of a common culture.

Coming from the National Chinese Silk Museum of Hangzhou and from public and private collections in Lucca, these works of art cover more than a thousand years of history, from the Tang to the Ming Dynasty, together with bibliographic and documentary support including many precious books and documents. The exhibition is divided into three sections. The first is dedicated to Lucca and its role as European capital of silk in the Middle Ages. The second is dedicated to the production of silk and its trade through China, central Asia and the Mediterranean. The third is dedicated to the manufacturing techniques typical of the Byzantine and Islamic world and their spread in Europe.

Among the most significant exhibits there are a number of clothes and textiles (shaman, brocades, gauzes, embroidery) dating from the Liao, Jin, Song and Ming periods, a group of terracotta figures representing Bactrian camels and Central Asian merchants of the Tang period, a series of paintings on silk dating from the Song and Yuan dynasty and representing Genghis Khan and the techniques of production and processing of silk, two large paintings on silk scrolls of the Ming period representing the emperor travelling, and a series of official texts describing the techniques of producing and processing silk. Also many sumptuous festive clothing for dignitaries, and a magnificent embroidered satin panel, all of the Qing Period. With regard to Central Asia, particularly outstanding are 12 ceremony garments produced in Uzbekistan in the nineteenth century with the ikat technique, characterized by extraordinary colours and designs.

Link to holiday accommodation in Lucca, right within the walls.