From roman colony, rich city became one powerful and.
Then the crisis, the Barbarians and the end.
But its continuous legend.

A time was rich and flourishing: marbles and columns adorned the hole and mosaics policromi were met on the pavements of the private houses. Hour lies silente in means to the fields: ruins of ancient glories are alternated to prati and canes field.

A time its port saw to enter and to exit tens of ships loaded with marble blocks; hour the coast appears far like the past, and to enter and to exit from the doors of the city curious tourists are alone and archeologi.

Luni, situated on the extreme border orients them of the Liguria to little meters from the border of the Tuscany, represents the archetype of the ephemeral glory, the arrogance punished, the unavoidable end.

It is just the feeling of ineluttabile sliding of the time, the intrinsic embrittlement of the human glory, than still today test visiting itself the archaeological diggings of Luni .
They are arrogant rests, that they squeak with the surrounding landscape, poor and discharged: the stones, the mosaics, and still more the statues that are conserved in close museum, tell one complex and troubled history.

Portus a Lunae still existed before the creation of the roman colony of two thousand citizens founded in the 177 B.C. in the territory a time belonged to the Liguri Apuani.

The particular one toponimo - Luna - attested from the I century B.C., it is also possible that it recalled to the contemporary arch l'immagine, to moon scythe, of the port.

Luni become in imperial age flourishing port and city prospers, and such it remained at least until all III the century after Christ.
The economy of the roman city, based essentially on the commerce and the exploitation of the rich marmiferi traditions of the neighbors the Alps Apuane, had its apex during giulio-claudia age (the century after Christ).

Under the favor of the emperors, Luni knew in fact a moment of great splendor that was realized in the development of the roads and monuments, in the wealth of the decorations that private publics adorned to buildings and. The greater part of the monumental rests that still today can be observed belongs just to that period: in the first place l'ampia rectangular public square of the hole, lastricata in marble and flanked on three sides from you carry, the neighbor tempio dedicated to us to triade the capitolina (Giove, Giunione and Minerva), and the civil basilica, the destined place for the administration of the justice and to the dealings trades them.

To the first imperial age the rests of the huge called signorile dwelling "casa degli affreschi" always belong.
Extended on un'area of 1300 meters squared, articulated in various atmospheres and an endowed time of garden with gardens and the Fontanas, the domus it was used uninterruptedly from I century ahead IV after Christ, but it is with the age of Augusto who endured a deep restructure and enriched of pavements in marble and of it frescoes that the damage the name, coming from you carry to us that they encircled it on three sides.

Still more width was then the "casa dei mosaici", that it rose to north of the hole on un'area of beyond 2,000 meters square.

But the monument that between all renders l'idea better del passed splendor is the great amphitheater, than, like it was norm for the roman cities, was constructed nel II century after Christ outside delle walls. Still very conserved, l'ampia elliptic arena was formed from two rings concentrates us of which, today, can be observed corridors, cells, outpatient's departments, gradinate and scales.
The building that accommodated the gladiatori games and the hunting to the fairs, could contain until 7,000 spectators and presupposes one advanced city population to the 17,000 inhabitants.

The crisis began to delineate itself between the III and IV the century after Christ.
The two reasons: on one side the serious economic forfeiture of the late empire, that it hit the city just in the remunerativo field, the commerce of the marble; the other graduates them interramento of the port, which had to the detritus deposits to you from the Lean river that transformed the lagoon zone of the foce in a wide malaric marsh.

However, two important city truths were obstinate to contrast the impending crisis: the road and the bishop.

Constructed on an orthogonal, typical viario tracing of the colonies roman, Luni in fact it was literally crossed from the way Aemilia Scauri (in continuation dell'Aurelia), that it entered from the door it orients them and it constituted the maximum decuman of the city.
This same road, in the feature that connected Luni to Parma, along the lowland Val di Magra and the step of the Cisa, exactly assumed in the Middle Ages a greatest importance, becoming a feature of that way Francigena that concurred with the pilgrims of Europe to catch up Rome and the Terrasanta.

The presence of a bishop, attested to Luni since V the century, and of a basilica, than still today conserve, was contributed probably to make of the city an important stage for the pilgrims that they covered the Francigena and that they found in close fluvial port of Saint Maurizio, like in the villages duffles-coat of Lerici and Portovenere as many landings place in order to continue their travel of sea.

In the X and XI century by now the lost port of the Luna had to conserve little residual ones of its ancient splendor. Later on, imperversare of the feudali fights, the alluviums and the malaria of it increased to such point the forfeiture, than l'antica city divenne a poor village.

The distance of the Francigena was moved more to settentrione and it was had, in 1204, the definitive passage of the episcopal center in the inhabited neighbor of Sarzana.

The word "end" by now it had been written and Luni entered in the legend, like symbol of fallace the human ambition.