Livorno: Touristic information

Livorno
Touristic information about the city, the provinces and localities

Livorno
Livorno: History
Livorno: Main sights
Localities in the province

Livorno

Livorno (archaic English: Leghorn) is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno and the third-largest port on the western coast of Italy, having a population of 170,000 as of 2004.

Livorno: History

Livorno was defined as an "ideal town" during the Renaissance. Nowadays it reveals its history through its neighbourhoods, crossed by canals and surrounded by fortified town-walls, through the tangle of its streets, which embroider the town's Venice district, and through the Medici Port characteristically overlooked by towers and fortresses leading to the town centre.
Designed by the architect Bernardo Buontalenti at the end of the 16th century, Livorno underwent a period of great town planning expansion at the end of the 17th century. Near the defensive pile of the Old Fortress, a new fortress, together with the town-walls and the system of navigable canals, was then built.
Nowadays the Venice district preserves most of its original town planning and architectural features such as the bridges, the narrow lanes, the noblemen's houses and a dense network of canals which once linked the port to its storehouses. In the 18th and 19th centuries Livorno, by then grown up and open to the world, had a lively appearance marked by neo-classical buildings, town parks housing important museums and cultural institutions, Liberty villas with sea views, the market.
Some Moriscos (Muslim Spaniards forcibly converted to Catholicism) moved from Spain to Livorno in the 18th century.

Livorno: Main sights

The Museo Mascagnano houses memorabilia, documents and operas by the great composer Pietro Mascagni. Every year some of his operas are traditionally played during the lyric music season, which is organised by the Traditional Theatre of Livorno.
Up in the hills the Sanctuary of Montenero, which is dedicated to Our Lady of the Graces, the patron saint of Tuscany, is a fixed destination for pilgrims. It is famous for the adjacent gallery, decorated with ex-voti mainly connected to stories of miraculous sea rescue.
The "Monumento dei quattro mori" ("Monument of the Four Turks"), dedicated to Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici of Tuscany, is one of the most important monuments of Livorno.

Same informations in this page for Livorno are based on the site www.wikipedia.org respecting the GNU Free Documentation License.

Livorno: other to visit

Isola d'Elba
Maremma
Tuscany archipelago