The Castle and the Bees

The coat of arms of the Province of Livorno, Palazzo Granducale (Grand Ducal Palace), Piazza del Municipio.
Lo stemma della Provincia di Livorno, Palazzo Granducale, Piazza del Municipio.

Rusty Coat of Arms

The (a bit rusty) coat of arms of Livorno on the entrance gate of the Micheli elementary school.

(Already posted on Instagram)

See also: Giuseppe Micheli School

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The Bees and the Castle

The coat of arms of the Province of Livorno, in Piazza Vigo.

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Shrouded Coat of Arms

The coat of arms on the facade of Town Hall has been shrouded...

See also: Town Hall - Piazza del Municipio - Coat of Arms - Municipal Building - Town Hall Facade

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Work in Progress - The Other Half - Four Palms - A New Piazza del Municipio - The New Square

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2000!

On the stones of the “Fosso Reale” we can see an elaborate Medici coat of arms dedicated to Ferdinando I, third Grand Duke of Tuscany. The dangling electrical cable is a recent improvement...

It feels like yesterday when we were celebrating our 1,000th post, and here is our 2,000th one. In more than five years we never missed a day, showing you the good and quite often the bad of our city. Thanks to all of you who keep following us!

External links: Ferdinando I de' Medici (Wikipedia)
See also: Harshad Number

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Livorno on a Grating

The coat of arms of Livorno on the grating of a window of the Municipal Building.

See also: Coat of Arms - Municipal Building

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The Legend of Tenochtitlan

A detail of the Mexican flag with the Coat of arms of Mexico. (Picture taken during the Foreign Navies ceremony on April 27th)

External links: Coat of arms of Mexico - Tenochtitlan

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Liburna

You can see this shield on the corner of “Via dell’Angiolo” and “Via delle Galere”. It is on the building of the “KinoDessé” movie theater and represents a stylized Liburna, a small galley, used as a symbol by our Chamber of Commerce.

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Coat of Arms

This is the old version of the city of Livorno coat of arms, hanging just above the main entrance of our town hall. The royal crown has been recently updated to a mural crown.In this 1926 image we can see that during the Fascist period two “fasci” were added to the crest, to be quickly chipped away after the fall of the regime.

See also: Mural Crown - Town Hall - Piazza del Municipio

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Caduceus

A cornucopia, a caduceus and an anchor on the basement of the statue of Hygieia, the Greek goddess of health, at the entrance of the “Parterre”. If a cornucopia is the undisputed symbol of food and abundance, the caduceus is often used erroneously as a symbol of medicine instead of the correct rod of Asclepius, with only a single snake.The wings of a caduceus behind the coat of arms of Livorno.The caduceus is a herald's staff, a symbolic object representing the god Hermes (or the Roman Mercury), and by extension trades and occupations associated with the god.The staff of Hermes is also a long-established historical symbol of commerce.

See also: Bowl of Hygieia - Parterre
External links: Confusion with the rod of Asclepius - Caduceus as a symbol of medicine (Wikipedia)

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Castles

We have already seen one of these fancy plaques in “Around the School”. They are usually found on any building owned by the municipality. In this collage you can easily see that they are slightly different and probably hand made. I have tried in vain to find when and how these tiles were made.

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404th Birthday

On March 19th 1606 the Grand Duke Ferdinando I de' Medici raised Livorno to the rank of city. The coat of arms was a fortress with two towers on a blue sea and a flag with the word “Fides”.
This is the doorway of what once was the “Liceo Classico Niccolini Guerrazzi”, founded in 1861. I am not sure if the carving is of that period, but the crest is gorgeous even without the waving flag.The gate of the same school, this time the coat of arms is complete and probably more recent.A detail of the decorations outside the “San Marco” Gate. The coat of arms, a bit dirty, is perfectly reproduced in stone.The standard of the City of Livorno, with the most up-to-date coat of arms, showing the mural crown where once was a royal crown.
Happy Birthday, Livorno!

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United Greeks

No, it is not a brand name or a shop: it's one of the two and half churches of “Via della Madonna”. Its complete name is “Chiesa della Santissima Annunziata o dei Greci Uniti”.The church was built in 1606 on a project by the architect Alessandro Pieroni for the Greek sailors arrived in Livorno to serve on the ships of the Order of Saint Stephen. They were Catholics but following the the Byzantine liturgical rite.The facade was added a century later by the sculptor and architect Giovanni Baratta, who built for the church a small bell tower.Practically destroyed by the air raids in the last war, only the facade and the tower survived. The church was rebuilt in 1951, but the long and difficult restoration of the magnificent interior was only completed in 1985. To end this serious post in a lighter tone, you must know that, in Livorno, a compelling advice in case of recurring bad luck is: “Ma vai a fatti benedi' da' Greci” (Have yourself blessed at the church of the Greeks).

See also: Inside United Greeks
External links: Greek Byzantine Catholic Church - Eastern Catholic Churches (Wikipedia)

Benefactors' Room

Here is the conference room of the “Istituto Pietro Mascagni”, which is not really part of the academy because the Province of Livorno, owner of the premises, reserved this room for itself.It is a quite austere room with parquet flooring, furnished only with a large polished table surrounded by period chairs. The cassoon ceiling is more ornated, showing, amidst many other decorations, the coats of arms of Livorno as municipality and as province.The third shield ought to be an older version of the crest of the local Chamber of Commerce, now simplified with the boat part only.The last shield is the well known coat of arms of the House of Savoy, the royal family who ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until 1946.A stone plaque outside this room says “Sala dei Benefattori” (Benefactors' Room), reminding us that here is where patrons and administrators of the former hospice once kept their meetings.

Barriera Garibaldi

Opened in 1837, the “Barriera Fiorentina” (Florentine Barrier) was the first passage built in the new Leopoldine Walls. It was a barrier and not a gate because, placed on the main road, it was open even at night.On the city side, in a traffic island, stands an obelisk dedicated to Leopold II of Tuscany. People call it “la guglia”, or the spire.Facing out, two decorated pediments stand on top of each building on the sides of the barrier. “Barriera Fiorentina” became “Barriera Garibaldi” in 1889, but the neighbouring zone is still commonly called “Fiorentina”.This is the usual location of the Sant'Antonino Fair.

See also: Leopoldine Walls - Sant'Antonino Fair
External links: Leopold II of Tuscany (Wikipedia)

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Province of Livorno

For the lovers of detail (myself incuded) this is the coat of arms of the Province of Livorno on the facade of the local Chamber of Commerce. The province is an administrative division between the “comune” (Livorno in this case) and the region (Tuscany). The bottom half of the crest, the castle, is the same of the Comune (municipality). The three golden bees on the top half were the flag designed by Napoleon himself for the Elba island, during his exile there. Elba is within the province of Livorno.This is another version of the same crest on the restored facade of the old “Liceo Scientifico”. I attended this school in the 70's of the last century.

Mural Crown

Last year Livorno changed its coat of arms and swapped its traditional gems crown for a mural crown with eight turrets (five visibles).
Of a mural crown Wikipedia says:
The term is also used in heraldry to denote a crown modeled after the walls of a castle. In recent times, mural crowns have been used in opposition to royal crowns; they are typical of Italian medieval and modern Communes. A mural crowned lady, Italia Turrita, is a symbol of Italy. In Italy, communes have a mural crown on their coat of arms, golden, with five towers, for cities.The municipality spent some time, and probably some money, on this quest for heraldic certainty, with the help of a few consultants and an exchange of letters between Livorno and Rome.
Fine, but now the sea is flooding the main gate...

See also: Town Hall - Piazza del Municipio - Coat of Arms

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