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Cinque Terre and Tuscany cooking Tour (3
nights)
Tuscany Cooking & Touring Tour
(5 nights)
Tuscany Cooking break (3 nights)
Tuscany Truffles Autumn Cooking & Touring
long week-end (2 nights)
Cinque Terre
The Cinque Terre
5 Terre the villages
5 Terre Marine Park
Trekking 5 Terre
Trek Riviera Levante
La Spezia - Deiva
The Romans
Levanto
Gastronomy 5 Terre
Cinque Terre wine
The Poet's Gulf
Poets' Gulf
La Spezia
La Spezia - the Gulf
La Val di Magra
La Val di Vara
La Via Francigena
Lerici
Lerici itineraries
Luni archeological site
Portovenere
Gastron. Golfo Poeti
Riviera di Levante
Camogli
Levanto
Portofino
San Fruttuoso
Santa Margherita
Sestri Levante
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Luni: The city's history
The city of Luna at
the mouth of the Magra, because of its position at the border between
Liguria and Eturia (region VII which was attributed by Augustus), and
said in sources, some Ligurian and some Etruscan; the city's name has
been interpreted as that of the goddess Luna, whose cult is witnessed by
inscriptions, or probably deriving from the sweeping line of its port.
Controversial is the identification of the Portus Lunae recorded by ancient sources
and especially by Strabone, by some identified with the Gulf of La
Spezia, from others with the port at the mouth of the Magra river where
in fact segments of the port's pier buried in sand have been brought to
light.
Originally the city was at the sea, while today it's almost 2 km
away; the ancient coastline has been recognized with the help of aerial
photographs and by the examination of the soil.p>
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The city had risen
as a roman colony in 177 B.C. to assure definite possession of the
Ligurian coastal area, protection of the port, and control over the
Ligurians. The last revolt of the Ligurians was quelled, as we know from
the Fasti Trionfali, in 155 B.C. by M. Claudio Marcello, consul for the
second time (inscription lunese on the abacus of a marble column that
sustained his statue, in Museum).
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The city is crossed by the via Aemilia Scauri, regarded by the censor who had
it built in 109 B.C., probably on a pre-existing layout: in reality it's the
continuation of the via Aurelia from which its name was taken, built in
II A.D. from Rome to Pisa, and subsequently prolonged, beyond Luni, then
to Genoa.
The city, that belonged to the Galeria tribe received new colonies under Augustus
(their patron) to whom a base was dedicated.
Various literary sources
speak about the city, but principle information regarding its everyday
life is revealed from the numerous inscriptions that mention
magistrates, representatives from the business class (industrial and
commercial), professional associations and many cults with different
divinities.
The forests covering the Apennines provided wood; Strabone witnessed at that
time, as in the Middle Ages that the river transported huge tree trunks
all the way to the city, excellent for construction beams.
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Luni - Photo (c)
Luca Baldassarre
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At Luni big
forms of Lunian cheese were shipped, which Pliny considered the best in
Etruria. But the richness, after the decline of its importance as a
military base during the struggle with the Ligurians, was guaranteed
with the marble veins. At first used locally and restrictedly, Lunian
marble was soon widespread in Rome, in Italy and in the eastern
provinces for statues and in architecture, the quarries became
imperial-owned.
Also in the III and IV centuries its economy was not decreased, testified by the
numerous oriental and western mint coins; a Lunian inscription in bronze (now at
the Bologna Museum) patronage board from the gallienic age cites Luni,
"splendid city our lunensis".
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Luni - Photo (c)
Luca Baldassarre
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Proof of the great importance of Luni for the spread of the new
Christian religion by one of its citizens, Eutichiano, in 275 A.D. he
was elected to the pontificate. Even after the fall of the Roman Empire,
the city, off the course of invasions, continued to thrive as an
important maritime center kept by the Byzantines and a bishop's see that
exerts administrative and political power besides religious, and under
the Longobard dominion the rights of a city were represented with the
issuing of autonomous coins, even of poor alloy.
The city had suffered destruction from the Rotari and incursions by the
Normans and the Saraceni, tormented by floods, malaria and feudal
struggles, and still being on the via Romea it was an attractive center
for the emperors (the Ottons, Frederick I, etc.). Only in 1204, with the
transfer of the bishop's see to Sarzana, does the city become just a
name, and it's called in writings "the cursed", cited by Dante amid the
dead city and again mentioned by Petrarca as "once famous and powerful
and now only a naked and useless name".
The Excavations
During the Renaissance Luni awakened the interest of humanists and antique dealers,
then in the 1700's scholarship took over and finally archaeological
research at the beginning of the 1800's under Carlo Alberto's reign and
at the end of this century for salvaging reasons the local manufacturer
C.Fabricotti assembled a remarkable collection, which ended up at the
Civic Museum of La Spezia and another small part at the Academy of Fine
Arts in Carrara.
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After 1950 excavations were begun by the Ligurian Superintendence for Antiquity,
and begun again more extensively from 1970 in collaboration with the
Archaeological Institute of the University of Milan with contributions
from the CNR. The central unit and some monuments of the city inside its
quadrangular belt have been brought to light; the eastern gate only
partially excavated, visible in some segment the huge irregular masses
of the Apuans and the lateral structures of the walls today enclosed and
on which rural roads pass.
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The modern road of St. Pero crosses the roman
house with mosaic flooring: Hercules with a bow, the seasons, and a suit
of dancing figures.
At the north western sector in a peripheral position, near the town walls, rises
the main ruins of the city: the Great Temple, long considered the Capitolium for
the gabled fictile sculptures (now at the Archaeological Museum of
Florence; you encounter their photographic models at the Luni Museum) in
which the Capitolina triad, Apollo and Artemide-Luna have been
recognized and, once thought to be a production of Etruscan art, are
today considered neo-Attic urban works from the II B.C.
The temple reduced to a crumbling unit with a three-celled layout and afterwards to
a single cell with a floor of crushed earthenware and inscriptions from druumvir
inspectors (now in Museum) that also belong to the founding
epoch of colonies and reveals the various republican stages.
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Luni - Photo (c)
Luca Baldassarre
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During the imperial age the podium was raised and consequently enlarged the
entrance stairway: the large marble lintel bears the dedication of
Antonio Pio. In this area excavation is in progress and rooms on the
sides of the square have been revealed where the loricated marble statue
was found, that is, personage with armor, now in the Museum.
In the north eastern angle of the city the theatre has been dug, or better Odeon,
small covered theatre, in very poor condition also because of the vandalized
excavations of the 1800's. Interesting for the layout, the building is
inserted in a rectangle with a portal on three sides, with a series of
walled-bases for statues, the cavea very ruined, various phases of the
pulpitum and stage system are recognizable, a single gear is preserved
from the stage pit.
In the western part of the city there are remains of the central basilica that is the
nucleus of that which is visible today, only the ruins of the bell tower
and apses. The 1800's excavation had brought to light numerous bases
with inscriptions from magistrates and emperors from the low empire, and
used again in the St. Maria basilica raised on a roman building that was
supposed to be the senate-house. Different phases are recorded: the
important late medieval structures, precisely Carolingian, to which the
main Romanesque apse can be added.
The city is crossed from east to west
by the via Aurelia, that constitutes the principal road, brought to
light with its pavement in some stretches, while the other big artery
from north to south, the principle hinge, linked the port to the center
of the city, insuring with its covered canal water drainage to the sea.
The hinge stops in front of a monumental complex consisting of two
squares paved with polychrome marbles symmetrically placed at the sides
of a building surrounded by a wide open space paved with white marble.
On the eastern side there is a domus (excavation in progress) with rooms paved
in polychrome marbles that form geometric motifs, frescoes and an ample garden, an
area with fountains whose center is the building nucleus of a monument
probably honorary and in the back a hall, seat of a collegium.
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Luni - Photo (c)
Luca Baldassarre
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In this area you encounter a deposit of dolia defossa, big pitchers in clay on which
measuring capacity is marked, that contained grain.
Behind these there is the ruins of a building called the temple of Diana, for the
discovery of a small relief of Diana. Probing under the square's marble pavement
has revealed older houses from the republican age.
The fulcrum of Luni's urban layout surfaced during the last excavations is constituted
by the Forum, stripped almost entirely of its marble floor and with
stretches of its marble canal that ran around it, the porticoes on the
long sides, the public building mentioned with its columned façade,
while on the short northern side separated from the via Aurelia, rose
the Capitolium, that is the three-celled temple dedicated to the
Capitolina triad (Jupiter, Juno, Minerva) fashioned after the Capitolium
of Rome.
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The majestic polygonal foundation is found today at the Museum,
but only some of the decorative terrecottas used for veneering and
finishing have survived. The marble inscription Filgur conditum (buried
lightning, or better, secret intentions) now in the Museum, refers to
the temple hit by lightning and it's proof of the reverential fear for
objects hit by lightning considered as an expression of the sacred. On
three sides around the temple there is a basin-fountain and a marble
portico along which were bases for statues.
Outside the city looms the amphitheatre, still well-preserved in the lower structure
of the stairs, cavea, the anular and radial corridors and the arena's entrance hall (it
was crowned with a covered arcade; built in corvo stone with marble
veneering, it's attributed to the Antonini age and could contain around
6,000 spectators, it staged gladiator shows and a mausoleum once
believed to be a lighthouse, a crumbled nucleus of a cylindrical
monument.
The Museum
In the Museum, built in 1964 rather
inappropriately close to the most important ruins in the center of the
ancient city, there are exhibited detailed, updated maps of excavations,
the aerial photo and the map of the city (repeated schematically also
outside the Museum on a big slab of stone); also exhibited is a summary
of the city's historical events and panels with a photographic selection
of the most important ancient objects emigrated from Luni.
In the hall there are statues exhibited of a gowned personage, a julius-claudia
princess with a cornucopia, a loricate, inscriptions of Claudio
Marcello, of Acilio Giabrione, crushed earthenware from the floor of the
Great Temple; there are also capitals and a geometric mosaic from the
republican age.
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Luni - Photo (c)
Luca Baldassarre
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In the gallery there are elements of architectural
decorations, some marble heads; in the glass cases, small bronze
objects, fragments of frescoes, a splendid glass goblet (millefiori)
from the roman villa at Bocca di Magra, small marble capitals for
pilasters, a bronze cornice from the theatre, weights, seals for bricks
and amphorae, amber, glass, gems, oil lamps, a wide selection of
ceramics, testimony of different products and lively commercial trading.
On the walls fragments of clay decoration from the Capitolium and the
Great Temple are exhibited. In the hall containing the photographic
panels portraits discovered during the last excavations: Augustus with a
civic crown, Agrippina Maggiore, Tiberio Gemello's bust.
Courtesy of
APT Cinque Terre
(c) 1997-2008 E. Massetti
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