Massa Carrara: Touristic information

Massa Carrara
Touristic information about the city, the provinces and localities

Massa
Carrara
Localities in the province


Massa-Carrara (Italian: Provincia di Massa-Carrara) is a province in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is named after the two main towns in its territory: Carrara and Massa, its capital.

Massa

Massa is a town and comune in Tuscany, Italy, the administrative centre of the province of Massa-Carrara.
Located in the northern part of the Tuscany region, where sea and land naturally join in a wonderful and unique contrast, Massa has a population of approximately 69,000 people, distributed in five boroughs.
The Massa area is of high touristic value and also hosts a concentration of some 600 industrial and craft activities, located within the so-called Apuan Industrial Zone, with a direct employment of more than 7,000 people. Together with the twin town of Carrara, Massa is worldwide known for the extraction and production of marble.

History
From the 15th to the 19th century, Massa was the capital of the independent Principate (later Duchy) of Massa and Carrara, ruled by the Malaspina and Cybo-Malaspina families. Massa is the first recorded town in Europe in which the magnetic needle compass was used in mines to map the mines and determine the extent of various mine owners' properties.
In 1829 the city was handed over to Austrian branch of the Este family. In 1859, during the unification of Italy process, it joined the Kingdom of Sardinia

Main sights
Massa's attractions include:
The Malaspina Castle (10th century)
The Renaissance Ducal Palace, on the Piazza Aranci
The Cathedral
Piazza degli Aranci
Piazza Mercurio
Marina di Massa.
The Orto Botanico delle Alpi Apuane "Pietro Pellegrini" is a mountain botanical garden maintained by the city.

Carrara

Carrara is a city in the province of Massa-Carrara (Tuscany, Italy), famous for the white or blue-gray marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione river, some 100 km west-northwest of Florence.

History
The municipality of Carrara was established in 1235.
Over the centuries it was ruled by Pisa (1235), Lucca (1322), Genoa (1329), and Milan (1343). After the death of Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan in 1477, Carrara was fought over by Tommaso Campogregoso, lord of Sarzana, and the Malaspina family.
Carrara and Massa formed the Duchy of Massa and Carrara from the 15th to the 19th century.
In 1929, the municipalities of Carrara, Massa and Montignoso were merged in a single municipality, called Apuania. In 1945 the previous situation was restored.
Carrara is the birthplace of the International Federation of Anarchists (IFA), formed in 1968.

Main sights
Cathedral (12th century).
Ducal Palace (16th century), now the seat of the Fine Arts Academy.

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

Massa Carrara: other to visit

Lunigiana