La Venezia

I don't remember which travel guide claims that Livorno is not very interesting. But it is of course not true and the travel guide in question is just unreliable. Livorno has a fascinating history, a very nice historical city centre and the wittiest people in Italy.

The ideal town

Livorno was defined as an "ideal town" during the Italian Renaissance. Today, it reveals its history through the structure of its neighbourhoods, crossed by canals and surrounded by fortified town walls, through the tangle of its streets, which embroider the town's Venice district, and through the Medici Port characteristically overlooked by towers and fortresses leading to the town centre. Designed by the architect Bernardo Buontalenti at the end of the 16th century, Livorno underwent a period of great town planning expansion at the end of the 17th century. Near the defensive pile of the Old Fortress, a new fortress, together with the town-walls and the system of navigable canals, was then built.

Tolerance

In the late 1580s, Ferdinando I of Tuscany declared Livorno a porto Franco, which meant that the goods traded here were duty free. The Leggi Livornine were laws in force between 1590 and 1603. These laws helped the trading activities of the merchant, freedom of religion and amnesty for some penance. Thanks to these laws, Livorno became a cosmopolitan city and one of the most important ports of the entire Mediterranean area. Many foreigners moved to Livorno; Armenians, Dutch, English, Greeks and Jews were among those who relocated to live and trade. Much later, during the 18th century, some Moriscos (Muslim Spaniards forcibly converted to Catholicism) also moved to Livorno from Spain.

Communism

The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno.

Anti-fascists

Sandro Pertini, partisan and president of the Italian Republic from 1978 to 1985, was jailed here during fascist time.

Sense of humour

Il Vernacoliere is an Italian monthly satirical magazine based in Livorno, Tuscany, founded in 1982 by editor-director Mario Cardinali. Il Vernacoliere is well known for its popular, raw, heavily irreverent political and social satire, written in the dialect of Livorno or, at the very least, with a distinctive Tuscanian tinge. The magazine features satirical articles, comics, and an editorial note (in standard Italian), with the occasional addition of opinion pieces. Amongst Italian magazines, Il Vernacoliere is notable for having no advertising, covering all its expenses with the sale of the journal and of the associated gadgets.