Pisa Italy Hotels

History of Livorno (Leghorn)

Livorno was founded in 1577 and built by Buontalenti, commissioned by the Medicis, who thus won an important access to the sea. Planned as an ideal town in the 16th century, Livorno reveals its history through its districts characterised by the Medicean canals, which are still navigable, and through its port, overlooked by towers and fortresses, leading to the town centre. After the supremacy of Pisa, under the Medicis, Livorno became an important port.

Soon afterwards the town greeted a lively multiratial community, thanks to the politics of Ferdinando de Medici. In fact, he encouraged the reception of the exiled people who were subject to political or religious persecutions.

Around the middle of the 19th century, the first bathing establishments of Italy appeared in Livorno. This tradition still continues thanks to the town's bathing establishments, hospitable and welcoming, situated along the shoreline promenade that stretches for many kilometres among impressive 19th-century buildings, villas in the Liberty style and the green vegetation: pine trees, tamarisks and oleanders.

What to see and what to do in Livorno (Leghorn):

Livorno, the Tuscan gateway to the Mediterranean Sea, is crossed by canals and situated by the seaside.
There are many places of interest by the sea, such as:

The Naval Academy, a prestigious training school for officers of the Italian Navy founded in 1881
The Terrazza Mascagni, which offers a wonderful view over some of the islands of the Tuscan archipelago: Elba, Capraia and Gorgona, as far as Corsica
The city Aquarium.
Do not forget a visit to the old Porto Mediceo, still surrounded by its five-sided Fosso Reale canal. The canal is bridged in the east by an enormous vault called the Voltone, better known today as the huge rectangular Piazza della Repubblica, off the north of which you can see the Fortezza Nuova, which today is home to the city's most popular, if somewhat downtrodden, public park.

A typical district called “La Nuova Venezia” (the new Venice) appears between the two fortresses: this is the soul of the most vivid maritime tradition. In fact this picturesque part of town is characterized by a close net of channels, which were very important for the firshermen in the 17th century.
Moreover, here you find the St Catherine Church, with its extraordinary apse, that preserves the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin by Vasari.

Follow Via San Marco past a glassy school built into the rubble of a bombed-out palazzo to see the facade of the former Teatro di San Marco, where the Italian Communist Party was founded in 1921.

Museums and Art Galleries in Livorno (Leghorn):

Museo Civico Giovanni Fattori.

It's housed in the Villa Mimbelli, which is surrounded by a public park on Via San Jacopo in Acquaviva. The villa is a trip, designed by Liberty architect Vincenzo Micheli in 1865 for a local businessman; its sumptuous restored interior contains quite an eclectic grab bag of styles. The museum is almost entirely dedicated to the only Tuscan art movement of note over the past several hundred years, the Macchiaioli, whose painters were interested in the way a viewer perceived the marks of light and color on a painting and covered canvases with their own take on French Impressionism. The museum is dedicated to one of the Macchiaioli's greatest talents and Livorno native son, Giovanni Fattori, whose work spanned the 1860s to 1908.

The Natural History museum of the Mediterranean

Events in Livorno (Leghorn):

Palio Marinaro (July)
In the Palio Marinaro and in the other rowing races the town districts challenge one another, according to a custom that has been handed on intact in time

A. Modigliani Art Award

Useful informations

Tourist Information Office in Livorno (Leghorn)
P.zza Cavour 6,
57100 - Livorno
E-mail: info@livorno.turismo.toscana.it
Phone: +39.0586.82.02.88

Contact Page

Powered by MKTG Street srl

Photos and content, except where otherwise cleary indicated, is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0.