Visit to Livorno lighthouse
Mediagallery
Saturday, April 27, the Lighthouse of Livorno will be open to groups of 25 people from 09.30 to 17.30 every 30 minute of interval.
Entrance is from the Benetti Shipyard gate in Via Edda Fagni 85, Livorno.
The Lighthouse of Livorno called the lantern was built by the Republic of Pisa at the small medieval town of Livorno, in that moment its possession, replacing the one placed on the shoals of Meloria, which was destroyed in 1284 during the homonymous battle by the Genoese. The original project, dating back to the beginning of the fourteenth century, is attributed to Giovanni Pisano; the tower was built between 1303 and 1305 by order of the “Provveditori della Fabbrica” Lando Eroli and Jacopo da Peccioli and at the time it was completely surrounded by the sea.
With the fall of the Republic of Pisa, the original Pisan cross carved on the narrow entrance door was erased and replaced by the Florentine lily flower. In 1583 the Grand Duke of Tuscany Francesco I de’ Medici, set up, at the base of the lantern, the first hospital in the city (1584) and the second in Italy after the one in Venice.
An inscription recalled the event: Franciscus Med. Magnus Dux Etruria and MDLXXXIIII. These low buildings in the early twentieth century were still present, but today no trace remains of them.
In 1944 it was undermined and destroyed by the retreating German sappers, to whom was attributed, perhaps erroneously, even the destruction of the nearby Torre del Magnale. It was rebuilt using most of the materials recovered from the rubble, following the original design, limited to the external parts. The President of the Italian Republic, Giovanni Gronchi, also attended the inauguration on 16 September 1956.
The light consists essentially of two embattled and overlapping towers, set above a truncated-conical base. In reality, on closer inspection, the two towers are in turn formed by different cylinders of decreasing diameters, which give the complex a slight conical shape up to the top.
The lighthouse, made of stone from the Verruca of the San Giuliano quarry, is 52 meters high and the maximum diameter is 12 meters.
Livorno Lighthouse is a beacon with rotating optics powered by the mains. Originally it worked by means of burners, then simple lamps and reverberation mirrors, while, in 1841, it was equipped with a Fresnel optic and was subsequently fed by incandescent acetylene gas. Today its small 1000Watt halogen lamp emits 4 flashes every 20 seconds; its range is around 24 nautical miles