Explorer Lucques

The Walls of Lucca are a ring of Renaissance brick and earth fortifications, 4.2 km round, built between 1504 and 1648 to replace the medieval and Roman defences. Never used in war, they were turned into a public promenade in the 1820s; today a tree-lined path along the top, with eleven bastions and six gates, is used for walking and cycling.

Piazza dell'Anfiteatro is an oval square in the north-east of Lucca's old town. The ring of houses around it follows the outline of the Roman amphitheatre, whose remains lie about 3 m below today's pavement. The architect Lorenzo Nottolini cleared the interior in 1830 to create a market square; four gateways lead in, and cafés line the curve.

The Guinigi Tower is a 45 m brick tower in Lucca, built in the second half of the 14th century by the Guinigi, a family of merchants and bankers. Holm oaks grow in a small garden on its top, reached by 230 steps, from where visitors look over the old town. The family's descendants gave it to the city in 1968.

The Basilica of San Frediano is a Romanesque church in Lucca, built between 1112 and 1147 on the site of a 6th-century church founded by Bishop Frediano. Its façade carries a large 13th-century gold mosaic of the Ascension. Inside are a carved 12th-century baptismal font and the preserved body of Saint Zita.

Palazzo Pfanner is a palace in Lucca built in 1667 for the Controni family, silk merchants, and later bought by Felix Pfanner, a brewer from Austria. Visitors walk through its 18th-century garden with statues, a fountain and a lemon house, and the frescoed main floor with period rooms and the surgical instruments of Dr Pietro Pfanner.

The Torre delle Ore is a medieval tower on Via Fillungo in Lucca, about 50 metres tall, which has carried the city's public clock since 1390. A wooden staircase of 207 steps climbs past the hand-wound clock mechanism of 1754 to the bell chamber, whose large arched windows look out over the roofs of the old town.

Lucca Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Martin, was begun in 1060 by Bishop Anselm and consecrated in 1070; its arcaded marble facade was started in 1204 by Guido Bigarelli, and the nave was rebuilt in Gothic style in the 14th century. Inside are the Volto Santo crucifix, Jacopo della Quercia's tomb of Ilaria del Carretto and a Last Supper by Tintoretto.

San Michele in Foro is a Romanesque church in Lucca, built over the Roman forum, first recorded in 795 and rebuilt after 1070. Its 13th-century marble facade rises in four tiers of small loggias and is crowned by a 4 m statue of the Archangel Michael; a Madonna by Matteo Civitali (1480) stands at its corner.

The Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi fills the palace of the Mansi, a Lucca merchant family who bought it in 1616 and refitted it in Baroque taste. Its state rooms keep their frescoes, furniture and Brussels tapestries, and the picture gallery shows paintings of the 16th to 18th centuries, among them works by Pontormo and Tintoretto.

Villa Reale di Marlia is a villa with a large historic park near Lucca, owned by the Buonvisi family from 1517. Elisa Bonaparte bought it in 1806 and had it remodelled in Neoclassical style. The gardens include a water theatre, a lemon garden, a lake and a green theatre of clipped hedges from 1652.