User:Guyarv/sandbox/Lucca

NOTE: The history section was a mess. It was poorly organized, named, and not even in chronological order. My edits are below. Sections without text have been added by me to be filled out in the future.

Antiquity
Lucca was founded by the Etruscans (there are traces of an earlier Ligurian settlement in the 3rd century BC called Luk meaning marsh) and later became a Roman colonia in 180 BC. Roman historian Livy refers to this location as Luca during the 1st century BC. The historical city center preserves the rectangular grid of its Roman street plan, and the Piazza San Michele occupies the site of the ancient forum. Between the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, an ampitheatre was built across the forum. The shape of this now-destroyed amphitheatre may still be seen in the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro.

In 56 BC, Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus reaffirmed their political alliance (now known as the First Triumvirate) in Lucca. Shortly before deposing Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus in 476 and thus ending the Western Roman Empire, Germanic warlord Odoacer plundered Lucca and destroyed much of its territory. Despite this, Lucca remained an important city and fortress within the Italian peninsula. Under the Kingdom of the Lombards, it was one of the three seats of the duke of Tuscany. Frediano, an Irish monk, was bishop of Lucca in the early sixth century. The Holy Face of Lucca (Italian: Volto Santo di Lucca), a major relic of a wooden crucifix supposedly carved by the biblical Nicodemus, arrived in 742. During the 8th century Lucca was a center of Jewish life, the community being led by the Kalonymos family. This community went on to open loan banks, a synagogue, and a cemetery.

Middle Ages
From 846 until 1197, Lucca was made the capital of the Margraviate of Tuscany, a frontier client state which owed nominal allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor. Lucca began to grow prosperous through the silk trade that began in the 12th century, and came to rival the silks produced by the Byzantine Empire. In 1118, while still under the dominion of the Holy Roman Empire, Lucca was granted a charter of liberties.

In 1160, after the death of Matilda of Tuscany, the city reconstituted itself as an independent commune dubbed the Most Serene Republic of Lucca (Italian: Serenissima Repubblica Lucense). Despite its small size, this Republic of Lucca would remain independent until Napoleon's conquest of it in 1805.

From the 11th through the 13th centuries Lucca was at near-constant war with its southwest neighbor, Pisa, also an independent republic at this time. This was continued until 1228, when Pope Gregory IX induced the two states to make peace. By the 1300s, Lucca was a premier state within Italy, rivaling Florence and Naples.

Dante may have spent some of his exile in Lucca, possibly including a reference to the city and his caretaker Gentucca in his work Purgatorio.

Renaissance
Leadership of Lucca changed hands between various non-Lucchesian oligarchs until it was finally liberated by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV in 1369.

In 1408, Lucca hosted a convocation intended to end a schism within the papacy. The convocation failed and issue of the schism was not resolved until 1417.

Napoleonic Wars
During the French Revolutionary Wars, Lucca was subdued, but not made a vassal of France. In 1805, Lucca was reconquered by Napoleon, who then installed his sister Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi as "Princess of Lucca".

From 1815 to 1847 it was a Duchy under the rule of the House Bourbon. Later, as part of Tuscany, it became part of the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1860 and finally part of the Italian State in 1861.