Leaving Pisa, we headed towards Livorno to spend a few hours in this port city with a special atmosphere. The city was already familiar to me, as I had been here several times before, when we left the port by ferry to Corsica. However, this time we were not waiting for our ship to depart, but had time to actually walk around the city and discover its hidden corners.
Livorno’s history is quite unique among Italian cities, as it is not a settlement founded in ancient times. Until the 16th century, it was just an insignificant fishing village on the coast, but then the Medici family decided to create the most important port of Florence and Tuscany here. The planning of the city began according to the ideal cityscape of the Renaissance, and it was then that the fortress system and the canal network were built.
The city’s real flourishing was brought about by the so-called Livorno Laws issued in the 1590s. With this decree, Grand Duke Ferdinand promised complete religious freedom and protection to all merchants, no matter where they came from in the world. Thanks to this, Livorno became an island of tolerance and multiculturalism. Jews, Greeks, Armenians, English and Dutch settled here, enriching the city with enormous capital and knowledge. Livorno became one of the most important free ports in the Mediterranean, where different cultures lived peacefully side by side.
In the 19th century, the city also became an elegant spa town, where European nobility rested, but the Second World War dealt it serious wounds. The bombings destroyed a significant part of the historic center, but the famous Terrazza Mascagni, this vast, checkerboard-patterned seaside promenade, still preserves the city’s former glory.
It was good to see that Livorno is not only a transfer point for ferries, but a city with a deep and exciting history, which proudly preserves its cosmopolitan spirit.
