The history of the Walls of Lucca

The history of Lucca's Walls coincides with the history of the city itself. For over two thousand years, Lucca has grown, defended, and defined itself through its walls, which have evolved alongside its society, its urban planning, and its worldview.

The first city wall dates back to Roman times:

A regular stone layout, with four main entrances at the cardo and decumanus. This layout reflected the colony's military and strategic function, but also a specific urban organization. Traces of that original form are still visible today in the design of the historic center.

With thepopulation increase and the changing defense models,

in the municipal era the city expands and with it the Walls:

During the 13th century, a new fortification expanded the perimeter to the north and east, including the church of San Frediano and making Via Fillungo, the ancient Roman cardo, the main axis of the medieval city. A further expansion in the 14th century brought the layout almost to its current level.

But it was in the 16th century that the project for the current Walls was born:

with the advent of firearms and the transformation of military techniques. A modern fortification, designed according to the most advanced theories of European military architecture. Construction formally began in 1513 and lasted almost a century, involving Italian and foreign experts, great resources and hundreds of men.

The result was an imposing and refined work: a bastion system over 4 kilometers long, with ten monumental bastions, parade grounds, sorties, tunnels, and underground passages. Every bastion, except one, bears the name of a saint; the exception is the Bastion of Liberty, a tribute to the independence and civic pride of the people of Lucca.

Le three original doors They were conceived as monumental entrance arches to the city, to which others were added in the following centuries, marking new relationships with the territory.

Paradoxically, the Walls they were never called to defend the city from a siege, and this "non-battle" saved them. From a defensive structure, they transformed, over time, into a large public space: a park, a promenade, a threshold between city and countryside, memory and present.