Salubrious air, breathtaking views, to be enjoyed between the Ligurian Sea and the hills of the Italian Apennine Mountains standing out in the background. A place maybe not among the most famous ones in all of Tuscany, but to be discovered and admired for the excellent delicacies your eyes, your soul and your mouth can feed on.
Let’s pay a visit to beautiful Leghorn, the most important town of its homonymous province. With its 153,000 inhabitants it is the third most populous settlement in Tuscany.
Its particularly mild climate thanks to the effect of the Ligurian Sea makes living in town absolutely pleasant, neither being forced to face really cold winters nor utterly hot summers, thanks to the typical marine breeze preventing both freezing and scorching temperatures according to the season.
History: Between Multiculturalism, Industry and Industriousness
Beyond the panoramic beauties and the relaxing atmosphere sea and hills can offer, Leghorn has always been characterized by a trading vocation that eventually led it to stand out as an import industry and port centre during the 20th century.
Its area, as often happens when it comes to Tuscan settlements, was inhabited in ancient times first by the Etruscans who later made way for Rome’s dominion.
Right under the Ancient Romans, and particularly thanks to the historical thinker, author and philosopher named Cicero, still famous worldwide nowadays, Leghorn found its first name, Labrone, from the latin word labrum meaning both “lip” and, figuratively “extremity” in reference to a location later identified by researchers as the exact area where Leghorn developed itself into the town it is now.
“Labronico”, i.e. “from Labrone” is a valid term used still today to refer to Leghorn’s people.
Thanks to the great fame of the town regarding trade and business, Leghorn grew that famous that its name was translated in other languages too. Aside from Leghorn, in the English-speaking European countries, the town was also known as Livourne in France and as Liorna in Spain.
Throughout the centuries the House of Medici played a crucial part in the development of the town, making it become the main port of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany from the 16th century on. This happened to pave the way for the town to let grow a typical multicultural sentiment in its area, hosting a lot of different ethnic groups thanks to the so-called “Leggi Livornine” (“Leghorn’s Laws”), particular rules meant to guarantee the inhabitants the freedom to practice their religion without limitations and the calling off of some minor felonies they may have previously tarnished themselves with. Leghorn experienced a remarkable increase in the number of its inhabitants, most of them vendors and merchants coming to town en masse from every corner of Europe to find both a hospitable and a profitable place to start over.
Later, when the House of Lorena took control of the areas of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, Leghorn saw its development blooming again, not only from a trade point of view but also at a cultural level. Right in Leghorn the Illuminist thinker Cesare Beccaria wrote the famous “On Crimes and Punishments”, a treatise on how to deal with adequate punishments to certain crimes.
At the beginning of the 19th century the town suffered from the occupation by Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops. Later, the Lorenas regained power over Leghorn, promoting the building of public works.
This industrious and productive spirit made Leghorn the first Italian town with a railway line (1844), which linked the town to Florence and Pisa, the first telegraph and telephone lines (1847 and 1881), the first power plant and the first public electric lamps.
WW2 times were particularly challenging in town. Leghorn was bombed repeatedly and most of its historical buildings were destroyed. The re-building took place gradually and brought the town back to an extremely good industrial level. In the last few years this sector’s production was inevitably forced to move from heavy industry to tertiary services.
Places to Visit
Leghorn and water: a duo that cannot really be broken. Aside from its seaside nature the town has in fact some other “watery” peculiarities indeed. One of its quarters is built… right on water! Just like Venice. A canal system, built from 1520s under the supervision of some Venetian architects, real experts in that field, brought the quarter of Venezia Nuova (New Venice) to life, originally mainly a trading area and now a destination for tourists, with numerous shops and boutiques to find, and taste, typical local products.
In the quarter it is possible to take a walk in the wonderful park in Fortezza Nuova, named after the House of Medici’s fortress where it is placed. The family had it built at the end of the 16th century by the architect Bernardo Buontalenti. The Fortress stands out on an island surrounded by canals and it can be reached only through one bridge. The park is often the venue of a lot of different shows, exhibitions and events.
Back to the Medicis, a family who left an unforgettable trace in a lot of Tuscan areas, Leghorn still hosts the first walls that the powerful House based in Florence wanted to be erected in town. The so-called Fortezza Vecchia, i.e. the old stronghold, is a complex made of three bastions and a 30-metre-high central fortified tower called the “Mastio della Matilda”, which proved very effective in order to protect the town from enemy assaults.
Then the sculpture complex of the Quattro Mori (literary, The Four Moors) is something you do not want to miss while visiting the town. It is maybe the most famous landmark in all of Leghorn and its creation was started in 1595 by Giovanni Bandini and then ended, 31 years later, by Pietro Tacca, in spite of the absence of two marble sea monsters supposed to embellish the complex, but actually left in Florence where they can be still admired today.
Knight Ferdinand I de’Medici, who patronized the whole sculpture that was dedicated to him in fact (the true, quite forgotten name of the monument is “Monument to Ferdinand I” indeed) is chiseled on a pedestal with the four moors, i.e. four pirates, held in chains by him at the four corners of the complex.
The legend goes that from a precise spot in the Piazza Micheli, the square where the complex is placed, it is possible to see all four noses of the sculptures of the moors, sign of good omen and luck.
Bouncing back to the deep love Leghorn feels for the sea and water, thanks to its seaside and port nature that granted the town centuries of flourishing trade and business, water literally comes to life in the aquarium of the town, the biggest in all of Tuscany. It hosts both plant and animal sea life with 2,000 animals belonging to 300 different species, and it has a specific area dedicated to the Roman origins of the town, where the reproduction of an ancient Roman shipwreck is placed in a tank home to some sea life species.
While strolling on Leghorn’s sea promenade, teeming with pubs, bars, kiosks, clubs and restaurants you have the chance to taste the traditional cuisine of the area with both meat (do not forget to try stewed boar meat, by the way) and fish specialties. Among the latter, the most famous one is undoubtedly the inimitable cacciucco livornese, Leghorn’s traditional fish soup, made of several varieties of fish such as mussels, scorpionfish, octopus, calamaries and prawns. Your suggestive promenade may find its most fascinating moment once arrived at the lovely terrazza Mascagni, a wide terrace that perfectly echoes the evocative atmosphere of the landscape Leghorn offers.
Originally built with a defensive purpose to host the Forte dei Cavalleggeri (the Cavalryman Fort), later dismantled during the 19th century, the terrace has then been dedicated to tourist aims and named after Pietro Mascagni, Leghorn’s beloved son and famous composer who wrote the acclaimed “Cavalleria Rusticana” (Italian for Rustic Chivalry). The terrace is 8,700 square metre wide and its pattern deliberately recalls an enormous chess, formed by more than 34,000 black and white tiles. A perimeter of 4,000 small columns bord the terrace, overlooking the Ligurian sea, and giving a breathtaking view to whoever craves to enjoy the great spectacle of sunset, and dawn, in town.
So why not to lose yourself in the unique fascination of the sea, with all the traits and details only a town like Leghorn can offer? Choose your luxury villa here, where sea and life charming magic and enchanting nuances constantly fill you with rapture and awe.
