Palazzo Ducale

Ducal Palaca has been the political and administrative center of the city of Lucca for eight centuries. In 1322 the Lucca leader Castruccio Castracani degli Antelminelli, at the height of his power, bought a palace around which he built a fortress called Augusta, defended by very high towers. In 1328, however, Castracani died and Lucca suffered numerous foreign dominations that occupied the interior of the Augusta fortress and managed to gain control of the city. Only in 1370, having regained freedom, it was decided to demolish the fortress, while retaining the Palace in which the Council of Elders, the highest collegiate body of the Republic, moved. In 1401, on the ruins of the Augusta, Paolo Guinigi, lord of Lucca, had a noble palace built with a beautiful garden. For the construction, many artists were called from all over Italy. When Guinigi fell, the Palace returned to the hands of the Lucchese Republic and the Elders resided there until 1799. In 1533, due to the explosion of a powder keg in the palace tower, the rebuilding of the complex began. Bartolomeo Ammannati in the sixteenth century and Filippo Juvarra in the eighteenth century were entrusted with the design of the palace. In the nineteenth century the Palace was completed thanks to the will of two authoritative women: Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi, sister of Napoleon and princess of Lucca and Piombino, and subsequently Maria Luisa di Borbone, who called the architect Lorenzo Nottolini from Rome, who worked assiduously to transform the Palace into a Royal Palace that would respond to the needs and tastes of a European Court. Even today the palace is large and hosts numerous exhibitions and many events. To characterize the interiors are above all the great monumental staircase, known as the Nottolini staircase, the gallery of statues, the Sala del Consiglio Generale, the Loggia dell'Ammannati and the Sala degli Staffieri.