Ducal Palace, Lucca: A Historic Government and Court Complex in Italy
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Republic of Lucca
- Site type
- Civic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page16 sections
History
The Ducal Palace, also known as the Palace of the Illustrious Lords and the Palace of the Province, is a historic governmental and court complex in Lucca, Italy. Developed from a medieval residence within the Augusta Fortress, it grew through Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassical phases and remained central to Lucca’s political life for centuries.
From the Augusta Fortress to the Republic
Before the lordship of Castruccio Castracani, Lucca’s republican government was based in Piazza San Michele. Castracani, the fourteenth-century lord of Lucca, established the vast Augusta Fortress and placed his residence, soldiers’ quarters, ammunition stores, and other military facilities within it. The fortress covered about one-fifth of the city and was traditionally said to contain 29 towers and four gates.
After Emperor Charles IV of Bohemia restored Lucca’s liberty, a popular revolt in 1370 destroyed the fortress. The demolition mainly affected its military structures. The government adopted a palace within the former fortress perimeter, identified with Castracani’s residence, as its seat. Because the building resulted from several properties acquired by Castracani, it did not follow a fully unified medieval plan, and his premature death prevented its complete rebuilding.
Charles IV inhabited the palace, and after his departure from Lucca in 1370 it became the seat of the republican government. The surrounding fortress was dismantled, while the palace was adapted for meetings of the General Council and other magistracies. A large nearby tower was also restored.
Paolo Guinigi and the Palazzo Pubblico
Around 1400, Paolo Guinigi established a new lordship and installed himself in the palace, furnishing it richly. He built a fortress around the building known as the Citadel of Lucca. After his fall in 1430, the citadel was dismantled and his furnishings were sold. The restored republic continued to use the palace, then known as the Palazzo Pubblico, as its governmental and parliamentary center.
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the complex expanded through the gradual addition of buildings to the earlier palace. It housed the parliament and government, soldiers’ quarters, an armory, a powder magazine, prisons, kitchens, stables, and servants’ quarters for the Gonfaloniere, the republic’s chief magistrate, and the governing college. Revenue offices, salt warehouses, and a chapel were also incorporated into the complex.
In 1576, an explosion in the powder magazine severely damaged the palace. The Republic commissioned Bartolomeo Ammannati, a major Florentine Renaissance architect and sculptor, to prepare the first coherent redevelopment plan. Only part of his scheme was realized, but it shaped important portions of the complex and introduced a more unified Renaissance character.
Juvarra’s Eighteenth-Century Works
Major further works took place during the first half of the eighteenth century under Filippo Juvarra, an internationally prominent Italian architect. Francesco Pini directed construction during Juvarra’s absences. The plans were revised repeatedly over more than ten years as functional requirements changed, moving from a fully Baroque conception toward more Classical forms.
Construction had begun by 1722. About a decade later, half of the northern wing was complete, including the central portal of its new facade and the bay adjoining the church of Santa Maria della Rotonda. Juvarra continued Ammannati’s eastern facade, which was ultimately completed. Work proceeded intermittently and was suspended during the second half of the century, although work inside the governing college’s apartments continued for several years.
French Rule and the Principality
In 1799, a French expedition commanded by General Jean Mathieu Philibert Sérurier invaded Lucca. The aristocratic republic became a democratic regime influenced by France, and the palace remained the state’s political center. The new rulers did not live there permanently, however, and the apartments were gradually dismantled.
In 1805, Napoleon created the Principality of Lucca and Piombino, ruled by Felice Baciocchi and Elisa Bonaparte. Elisa considered the palace unsuitable for court life and government affairs. Its furnishings and decorations were altered, a court theater was created, and the incomplete northern wing was substantially improved.
Elisa also ordered the demolition of a neighborhood east of the palace to create the large square now called Piazza Napoleone. The work removed the church of San Pietro Maggiore, the mint, and the palace tower, among other buildings. Four columns commemorating Napoleon’s victories decorated the new square, while a planned statue of Napoleon was never made.
The Bourbon Duchy and Modern Institutions
After Napoleon’s defeat, the Baciocchi rulers fled in 1814. Lucca was occupied first by a British expedition commanded by Lord William Bentinck and then by Austrian forces for three years. The Congress of Vienna transformed Lucca into a duchy ruled by the Bourbon-Parma dynasty.
Duchess Maria Luisa of Bourbon-Spain undertook a comprehensive renovation intended to turn the palace into a formal Neoclassical court residence. She appointed Lorenzo Nottolini Royal Architect of the Household and Court and commissioned extensive interior alterations. Maria Luisa died in 1824 before work on the southern side of the main courtyard could begin. Her successor, Duke Carlo Lodovico, favored architectural and landscape projects elsewhere, although the Palazzina Nuova was built during the 1830s for administrative offices and other royal-household functions.
The palace’s decline as a ducal residence began with Lucca’s annexation to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1847. After Italian unification, much of its ornamental furnishing was removed, and the complex became the seat of the prefecture, the courts of appeal and assizes, and the Province of Lucca. The province acquired the palace in 1861. In the second half of the nineteenth century, two rooms in the Palazzina Nuova were adapted as courtrooms.
Today the complex accommodates the Province of Lucca, the Prefecture, the provincial Carabinieri command, the Lucca Historical Institute, the Historical Institute of the Resistance, the Museum of the Risorgimento, the Museum of Emigration, and the Lucca section of the Club Alpino Italiano’s R. H. Budden Library. The Carabinieri are Italy’s national gendarmerie and military police force.
The Museum of the Risorgimento occupies rooms facing the Cortile degli Svizzeri. The Risorgimento was the nineteenth-century movement that led to Italian unification. The museum’s collections cover the period from the uprisings of 1821 to the First World War and include a Carboneria flag from 1821, objects associated with Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini, weapons, paintings, letters, clothing, and everyday objects.
Founded in 1925 as the Museum of War through research by the provincial federation of First World War veterans, the museum later expanded its collections to include the Risorgimento and received private donations. It moved from the Porta San Donato fortification to Villa Guinigi in 1929, then to its permanent location in the Ducal Palace in 1989. It reopened in 2013 after review and refurbishment. The palace’s successive roles as republican government center, princely and ducal residence, court, administrative complex, and provincial institution reflect Lucca’s changing political history.
Remains
Courtyards and External Structures
Cortile degli Svizzeri
The palace is an irregular complex formed by medieval, Renaissance, eighteenth-century, and nineteenth-century work. The Renaissance group incorporated the older palace, a northern wing containing the General Council chamber and the Gabella Maggiore customs offices, and a tower joined to the northern wing by a covered bridge. Other passages connected the newer and older buildings.
Between 1579 and 1586, an elegant loggia with Serlian openings, each formed by a central arch flanked by lower side openings, and two sides of the courtyard later called the Cortile degli Svizzeri were constructed. The courtyard’s porticoes have solemn rusticated stonework, a masonry treatment with strongly emphasized joints and textured blocks. Around 1620, a formally rigorous building was added along its southern side as barracks for the guards protecting the government. From 1653, these guards were recruited exclusively from the canton of Lucerne, giving the courtyard its present name.
Cortile Carrara and the Central Courtyard
Juvarra’s northern courtyard, now called the Cortile Carrara, replaced Ammannati’s columned porticoes with large arches resting on square piers. Solid wall sections interrupt the arches, while two large Serlian openings occupy the northern and southern sides. The courtyard is faced with local quartzite known as Guamo stone.
The central courtyard remains an unfinished monumental space surrounded by a portico with two orders of piers. It contains a statue of the Lucchese jurist Francesco Carrara by Augusto Passaglia. The main portal opens onto this courtyard, while the present arrangement preserves the incomplete courtyards and the successive work of Ammannati, Juvarra, Pini, and Nottolini.
Facades, Bridges, and Former Military Areas
Ammannati’s plan envisioned a palace arranged around three large courtyards. The eastern facade was completed only as far as the doorway opposite San Pietro Maggiore, and the northern courtyard remained unfinished when work stopped. The central courtyard had monumental arcades on its eastern and northern sides, and a grand staircase connected the ground floor with the first floor, where the apartments of the Gonfaloniere and Anziani and the General Council chamber were located.
Two covered bridges connected the palace with neighboring buildings. One led to the tower and the mint, while the other led to the Dominican church of San Romano. The upper level contained prisons, and prisoners could be taken to the tower, where a torture chamber was located. Priests entered from San Romano to celebrate Mass in the Chapel of the Anziani. The chapel occupied part of the wing later facing the Cortile degli Svizzeri.
The palace’s eastern facade now faces Piazza Napoleone. Its earlier urban surroundings were altered when the neighboring quarter was demolished, including San Pietro Maggiore, the mint, and the tower. Rows of plane trees bordered the resulting square.
State Apartments and Ceremonial Interiors
Staircase and Gallery of Statues
Nottolini replaced Ammannati’s original two-flight ceremonial staircase with a new staircase whose second flight is interrupted by a landing. High-quality stucco and a coffered ceiling decorate the stairway. At its summit, the Gallery of Statues forms a large Neoclassical corridor containing stucco decoration and life-size marble statues modeled on classical divinities and mythological figures, produced mainly by artists from Carrara.
Light enters the gallery through openings at the tops of small domed structures. The corridor leads to the state apartments, the terrace along the eastern facade, and a large glazed opening overlooking the Juvarra courtyard.
Government Rooms and Former Chapel
Other arcades from the staircase lead to rooms used for receiving ambassadors and holding government cabinet meetings. The first two rooms retain much of their sixteenth-century architectural character associated with Ammannati. They include a large sandstone portal leading to the former parliament chamber, a coffered ceiling in the grand hall, and an original wooden ceiling in the loggia.
West of the great portal, later rooms were extensively remodeled. Luigi Ademollo painted the first salon with scenes from the life of Trajan and an allegorical image of Maria Luisa in a chariot whose horses trample the vices. Further rooms, including the Throne Room, occupy part of the former republican chapel and were renewed with stucco and wall paintings.
Passage of the Carriages and Palazzina Nuova
Nottolini redesigned the space between the two courtyards as the Passage of the Carriages. This monumental gallery has two parallel rows of large columns in Guamo stone and a coffered vault. It allowed carriages to pass between the courtyards and their occupants to reach the ceremonial staircase under cover.
The Palazzina Nuova forms the western side of the larger courtyard. It has a ground floor, mezzanine, and principal floor and was designed for administrative offices and other functions connected with the royal household. Two of its rooms were adapted as courtrooms in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Paintings, Collections, and Decorative Features
The western wall of the Cortile degli Svizzeri once carried a large allegory of Lucca’s Liberty painted by Pietro Testa around 1630. The painting was later detached and placed inside the palace, where much of its color has been lost. The General Council chamber contains a Flemish painting of the Buonvisi family and Testa’s fresco of Lucca’s Liberty, formerly positioned above the entrance to the courtyard.
Above the Guards’ Loggia is the so-called Ammannati Loggia, decorated with original sixteenth-century grotesques and stucco. The Staffieri Room has walls frescoed by Luigi Ademollo. The grand reception rooms are now occupied by the Province and Prefecture. Until 1977, the National Picture Gallery was housed there before moving to Villa Guinigi.
The palace formerly contained an art gallery with the Madonna of Lucca, a Natural History Museum directed by Alessandro Carina, and the Palatine Library. These collections formed part of the palace’s Bourbon-period cultural and artistic holdings.
