Lucca

Lucca is one of the main art cities of Italy, famous also outside the national borders especially for its intact city walls of the 15th-17th century, which describe a perimeter of about 4,450 m around the historic center of the city and makes it one of the 4 Italian provincial capitals to have an intact city wall, together with Ferrara, Grosseto, Bergamo; the same city wall, transformed already starting from the second half of the nineteenth century into a pleasant pedestrian promenade, is still today one of the best preserved in Europe, as it was never used in past centuries for defensive purposes.

As a result, the monumental historic centre of the city has remained almost intact in its original appearance, and can therefore include various valuable architectures, such as the numerous medieval churches of notable architectural richness (Lucca has even been nicknamed the "city of 100 churches", due to the presence of numerous churches in its historic centre, consecrated and not, present in the past and now in the city), towers and bell towers, and monumental Renaissance buildings of valuable stylistic linearity.

The city also boasts suggestive urban spaces: the most famous is certainly Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, built on the ruins of the ancient Roman amphitheatre by the architect Lorenzo Nottolini and unique in its architectural genre.

The main artery of the historic city is the narrow, medieval Via Fillungo, which brings together the city's major commercial establishments.

Other suggestive squares are Piazza San Michele, the historical heart of the city, and Piazza San Martino, the religious heart where the famous Duomo di San Martino stands.

Precisely because of its immense historical and monumental wealth, a proposal was recently put forward to include the historic centre of Lucca – which includes a historic traditional theatre, the Teatro del Giglio, in the UNESCO World Heritage List.