Livorno

Livorno is situated along the coast of the Ligurian Sea, is one of Italy’s most important ports, both as a commercial and touristic port of call, an industrial centre of national importance and, among all of the Tuscan cities, it is generally considered the youngest, even though its territory holds historical testimonies of remote times that have survived the mass bombings of the Second War World. The city, developed from the end of the XVI century upon request of the Medici family, is famous for being the birthplace of prestigious personalities such as Amedeo Modigliani, Pietro Mascagni and Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. In the past, until the first years of the 20th century it was also a tourist destination of international importance for the presence of important seaside and thermal establishments, that give the city its the name of Montecatini-on-the-sea. Livorno, which at the end of the XIX century counted around 100,000 inhabitants and was the 11th most populated city in Italy and the 2nd in Tuscany, in the last decades has had a notable decline in the number of inhabitants and now is the 3rd most populated city in Tuscany after Florence and Prato.
After the destruction suffered in the Second World War and the subsequent mutilations inflicted on the city with the reconstruction, Livorno has lost a lot of its historical heritage, even though some traces remain of its various phases: in particular the structure of the town centre, a fortified pentagon built according to the 16th century criteria of the ideal city. There are also many churches, temples and cemeteries of different religions, a symbol of the perfect union of different races and peoples that have considerably influenced the civic culture. This spirit of reciprocate tolerance, united in the past to the illuminated politics of the Tuscan Grand Duchy in fact created intense cultural activity. Important bookshops and prestigious theatres animated the life of the city: for example, here the Italian edition of the Encyclopédie was published, while numerous literary people, such as Tobias Smollet or Carlo Goldoni, stayed in the pleasant hamlets around Livorno. Great works of architecture for public use rose then in the first half of the 19th century, when the city began to affirm a touristic vocation that brought about the opening of many bathing establishments in which even today can be seen distant echoes of the Belle Epoque.
From the architectural point of view, to the late-Renaissance interventions connected to the Medici domination, such as the Palazzo Mediceo and the Cathedral, are coupled buildings characterised by the search for extreme functionality, all situated within the Buontalenti pentagon. The 18th century coincided with the affirmation of late-Baroque tastes, found in the Sanctuary of Montenero and in the New Venice district, where the longitudinal church of St. Ferdinand and the centralised one of St. Catherine rose; among the residential buildings should be mentioned the Palazzo Huigens and the nearby palazzo of Marble Columns, both placed along the characteristic Via Borra. The 19th century saw the affirmation of Neo-Classicism: one of the first examples was the San Marco Theatre (1806), following which appeared a series of theatre spaces and arenas for daytime shows. In the first half of the same century architects such as Alessandro Gherardesca, Luigi de Cambray Digny, Pasquale Poccianti, Gaetano Gherardi, Giuseppe Cappellini, Angiolo della Valle and Luigi Bettarini contributed to the building of aqueducts, churches, palazzos, piazzas of a Neo-Classical style that completely changed the aspect of the ancient Buontalentian city and its suburbs, bringing it to the forming of the so-called Livorno Polytéchnique. The 20th century, opened with the vaguely-Liberty works of Angiolo Badaloni (like the thermal establishment Acque della Salute), applied itself, in the years preceding the Second World War, to the building of eclectic structures (for example the Palazzo della Galleria) and in rationalistic style (like the Palazzo del Governo). The wartime events caused the almost complete reconstruction of the town centre, where Luigi Vagnetti erected his controversial Palazzo Grande. The ‘60s registered the construction of two important buildings: the new Synagogue and the Skyscraper of Piazza Matteotti, works by Angleo Di Castro and Giovanni Michelucci, respectively.