Lucca's walls themselves, however, evocative as they are do not tell the whole story alone; they must be understood and studied in wider social, cultural, aesthetic, and geographical as well as historical contexts as they will be in this program. Lucca conserves evidence of history stretching back well over two millennia. While very little archaeological testimony remains of the original Ligurian and Etruscan inhabitants of the site of this Tuscan city on the Serchio River (about a one-hour drive from Florence), there is ample evidence in the urban infrastructure of its ancient Roman city plan. During the last crisis years of the Roman Republic Julius Caesar, Pompey and Crassus chose the city as the venue for their meeting that resulted in the formation of the fateful First Triumvirate. They no doubt entered the city on the Roman roads that still serve as the main arteries to the city's center or "forum." On this site subsequently the Christian church of San Michele titled "in foro" with its exquisite marble façade was erected between the 9th and 14th centuries A.D. The three Roman rivals likely visited the nearby amphitheater which has kept its shape across the centuries though functionally its walls were transformed into dwellings, shops, and, in part, in the period that is the focus of this program, a prison, while the amphitheater's open center provided space for an open-air market.

The system of Roman consular roads--the Emilia Scauri, Clodia, and Cassia--made Lucca an important city not only for the military but also for commerce linking it with other urban centers across the Empire. Lucca maintained its important historical role throughout the Middle Ages. As the Roman Empire declined through the Lombard era of the early Middle Ages, Lucca extended its control over the surrounding territory becoming the capital of the Duchy of Tuscia enjoying a period of cultural flowering. The Carolingians' entry into Italy along these roads did not diminish the importance of the city nor the feudal nobility of the region. The Middle Ages brought Christian missionaries and pilgrims to Lucca and its territory from afar, also along some of the ancient Roman Roads and their variants, the most famous of which came in this period to be called the Via Francigena.

Lucca's incredibly rich medieval religious history and monuments recall foreign connections in the duomo or cathedral of St. Martin or Tours and the church of San Frediano in the city and the pilgrimage shrine of San Pellegrino dell'Alpe on a mountain top on the territory's border with historical Lombardy (today Emilia Romagna). Lucca was an important center of Christian pilgrimage throughout the Middle Ages because it possessed the Volto Santo, a wooden cross with the image of Christ that legend tells was carved by Nicodemus; the story of the translation of the cross to Lucca forms one of the central religious legends of the city and it was across the medieval and early modern centuries--and remains--one of the important focal points for urban communal ritual each September.

In the 11th and 12th centuries—by now raised to the status of a Marchesato—Lucca and its territory again entered a period of power and cultural flourishing especially under the rule of countess Matilda of Canossa who helped broker one of the key agreements between the Pope and Holy Roman Emperor during the Lay Investiture Controversy at her castle at Canossa. Matilde was known also as a great builder of fortifications and bridges (the Devil's bridge or Ponte della Maddelena across the Serchio still stands today). In the context of the Guelf-Ghibelline controversies that ensued in the following centuries, Lucca was able to win from Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1162 communal privileges that mark the real beginnings of the city's political independence that would identify it until modern times. The emperor guaranteed the city control beyond its medieval curtain walls into the Sei Miglia, the surrounding district, or contado, to a distance of six miles.

Hand in hand with the rise of the Commune of Lucca came the city's development as a major player in the commercial revolution of Europe, most importantly in the production of luxury silks. The safeguarding of Lucca's political and economic interests shaped much of its subsequent diplomatic and military history in the rivalry of the Italian city-state system especially with Pisa and Florence well into the Renaissance for control of Versilia, Lunigiana, the Garfagnana, etc. In 1314 Lucca submitted to Pisan control under Uguccione della Faggiola for a short time. Then, though only briefly, under the condottiero, Castruccio Castracani degli Antelminelli from the Serchio valley (whose biography was written by Machiavelli) Lucca enjoyed a political resurgence of control in much of Tuscany cut short by the soldier of fortune's premature death. More military struggles followed against Pisa and Florence in the region over the next century.

By the 16th century Lucca had become an oligarchic Republic with power held by the principal mercantile families of the city. Numerous palazzi erected by these families survive in Lucca to this day. The most famous of the signori to emerge from this class was Paolo Giunigi whose urban palace and tower today function as a museum. Life was not always tranquil within this mercantile Renaissance city. An economic crisis in the textile sector led to the so-called "rivolta degli straccioni" or the weavers revolt in 1534. The same decades of the early sixteenth century fleetingly witnessed the popularity of Protestant and proto-Protestant ideas and preachers. Ultimately Catholicism triumphed; dissenters emigrated to safe havens like Geneva, Lyons, and Amsterdam; and Lucca became a staunchly Counter-Reformation city though defiantly independent from Jesuit and Papal encroachment on local diocesan prerogatives. As other textile centers in Europe undermined Lucca's position in textile production and trade, more investment was diverted to the agricultural sector and to new Renaissance technologies. Like Venice, Lucca took advantage of the printing press to become a significant publishing center.

Throughout the 16th century Lucca's major peninsular rival was Florence, or more accurately the Grand Duchy of Tuscany under restored Medici control. This is not to say that the Medici were the only rivals of Lucca. The rise of the Este family in Emilia-Romagna led to drawn-out territorial boundary and road disputes in the Garfagnana region, for example. Throughout 16th century Lucca was able--despite internal crises as well like that of the Burlamacchi conspiracy, which led to the leader being arrested and decapitated upon imperial orders in 1548--to maintain its independence largely through successful diplomacy. Hindsight allows the historian to understand how successfully Lucca negotiated the expansionist ambitions of Florence in the broader context of the incursions of Spanish and French forces into the peninsula in the 16th century and how it kept foreign powers out of local issues that might have gotten out of hand, such as the infamous murder case of the husband of Lucrezia Buonvisi. For the lucchesi of the time, however, the frequent threat of war and potential intervention was quite real. Against this background, and in the face of the technological changes in warfare, the construction of new, state of the art urban defensive walls was undertaken. Work began in 1544 and was substantially completed in 1645.

Lucca's tense state of affairs with its neighbors was resolved in the 18th century in the context of the French Revolution. When Napoleonic forces invaded Italy, Lucca capitulated and the mercantile oligarchic republic was no more. The new Principality of Lucca was placed in the hands of Napoleon's sister, Elisa, who was married to Felice Baciocchi. They took an avid interest in the city and sought on the one hand to beautify and conserve it refurbishing Renaissance palaces; and on the other hand they instituted French revolutionary reforms in law, subordinated the role of the Church to government and suppressed monasteries and convents.

Lucca's political identity from this time forward was linked to that of larger European powers. The conservative reaction that followed the Napoleonic Era with the Congress of Vienna in 1815 made Lucca a Duchy again under titular rule of a female, Maria Luisa, infanta of Spain who is credited with planting many of the trees atop the city's defensive walls . Immediately prior to the revolutions of 1848 Lucca was a Bourbon holding before being annexed to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany by mid-century. The remainder of the political history of Lucca is part of the larger story of the Risorgimento—or unification of the modern nation of Italy completed in 1870.

In the Risorgimento's Wars for Independence and World War I, Lucca and its historic territories were largely spared devastation though its inhabitants served among the wars' many combatants. World War II was not as kind to the area and people of the nation of Italy now designated as the province of Lucca. The Gothic line ran north of the city through the Serchio and Lima Valleys and their mountains.The Garfagnana, in particular,experienced the war and invasions of rival Axis and Allied forces first hand while the mountains and villages of the lucchesia harbored members of the Italian Resistance.

Despite the vicissitudes of the Second World War, numerous early modern fortifications that formed the crucial network to protect Lucca and its territories, from the surrounding plain to the Alpi Apuane and the Mediterranean in the west and in the Serchio Valley and Garfagnana to the north, survive. The walled city of Lucca itself fortunately has escaped damage over the centuries. While not compromising the necessities of twenty-first century modern life—automobiles, cell phones, etc.—Lucca allows those who enter the city today to experience much of what life was like in an early modern walled city. It contains in and within its walls layers of historical records and experiences conserved in its archive (Archivio di Stato di Lucca), its library (Biblioteca Statale, Lucca), its museums (Palazzo Mansi, Villa Guinigi, Torre Guinigi, etc.), study center (C.I.S.C.U.) , its churches (too numerous to cite!) and indeed in its very roads, palazzi, and monuments.