The commune was known as Ortonovo (from the name of one of its current frazioni) until April2017. It is now named after the frazione of Luni.
Within the municipality is the extensive archaeological area encompassing the impressive remains of the Roman city of Luna.
Geography
Located in a plain near the Tyrrhenian Sea and close to the borders with Tuscany, Luni is crossed by the river Magra and lies between Sarzana (7km in north) and Carrara (5km in south). It is 4km far from Ortonovo, 15km from Massa and 30km from La Spezia. The village is served by National Highway1 "Aurelia", crossed at Luni Mare by the A12 motorway and counts a railway station on the Pisa-Genoa line.
The Roman colony was built on a low promontory at the mouth of the Magra, a position which is now inland but which in ancient times was coastal in every sense: the walls were lapped on one side by the relatively fresh waters of the river estuary on the north-west of the city, and on the other by a salt lagoon, protected from the open sea by a sandy strip and an island as shown by archaeology.
History
Background
Roman conquest of Italy. Numbers = Years BC
Towards the end of the 3rd century BC the Apuani Ligurians took over the plain of the Lunigiana and the land at the mouth of the river Macra (now Magra), and pressed southward against the territory of the Etruscan city of Pisa which was included within the region fully conquered by the Romans around the middle of the 3rd century BC.
After numerous battles with Rome from the 230s BC, in 193 BC a large Ligurian force attacked Pisa but the consul Quintus Minucius Thermus drove it back.
Liguria was made a Roman consular province by 188 BC with 2 legions stationed there for campaigns. The Apuani were the object of a major offensive in 187 BC by the consuls Gaius Flaminius and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. Further campaigns followed: in 186 BC the consul Quintus Marcius Philippus was ambushed in Apuani country and lost some 4,000 men and in 185 BC the consul Sempronius forced a passage through to the Magra.
In 180 BC the proconsuls Publius Cornelius Cethegus and Marcus Baebius Tamphilus, whose command in Liguria had been prorogued, received the surrender of about 12,000 Apuani and resettled them on public land in Samnium, judging this the only way to bring the Ligurian war to an end. About 40,000 free persons with women and children were also transferred at public expense.
Ancient harbour
Luni derived much importance from its harbour, which was on both the Gulf of La Spezia and the estuary of the Magra. The harbour was used as a landing place for commercial ships by both the Etruscans and the Greeks. Nearby an large Ligurian necropolis has been excavated, dating to the 4th and early 3rd century BC, probably attributable to a maritime settlement whose inhabitants had commercial relations with the ships that stopped in the estuary. The harbour is mentioned by Ennius, who sailed from there to Sardinia in 215 BC under Manlius Torquatus. The Romans used the harbour perhaps as early as the end of the 3rd century BC and certainly from the beginning of the 2nd, as a base for the fleets heading to Spain and for the campaigns against the Ligurians.
Under the Romans the port grew to national and not merely local importance.
Roman Period
Regio VII EtruriaMale portrait. Luni marble, period of the Second Triumvirate (43BC)
The Roman colony of Luna was established in 177 BC to secure the frontier by the triumvirsPublius Aelius Paetus, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (consul 187 BC) and Gnaeus Sicinius.(41.13.4) 2000 Roman citizens were transferred here each being given fifty-one and a half iugera of land taken from the Ligurians. It was named after the goddess Luna (Moon) to whom a temple was built early in the settlement.
Luna was a military stronghold for the campaigns against the Ligures who continued to resist the Romans until 155 BC, when Marcus Claudius Marcellus (consul 166 BC) managed to subdue them definitively; to celebrate the victory his statue was erected in the forum of Luna with an inscription found in 1851. The subsequent resettlement of mountain populations on lower ground combined with the linking of cummunities to cities through attributio drew the survivors into the Roman economy.
In 109 BC Luna was connected to Rome by the Via Aemilia Scauri, rebuilt in the 2ndcentury AD as the Via Aurelia. Luna flourished from exploitation of the white marble quarries in the nearby Alpi Apuane and neighbouring mountains of Carrara, whose stone bore the name of "Luna marble" in ancient times. Augustus was the first to use Luni marble extensively to beautify Rome. Under the empire of Augustus Luni became part of Regio VII Etruria and experienced its period of maximum splendour, with the expansion of the forum and an intense building expansion.
Pliny the Elder speaks of the quarries as only recently discovered in his day; they were soon owned by the imperial family. He considered the big wheels of cheese from Luna the best in Etruria. Good wine was also produced.
Among the notables of the colony, inscriptions document families such as the Baebii, involved in the exploitation of the quarries, and figures linked to the imperial court such as the eques Lucius Titinius Glaucus Lucretianus, four times duumvir and patron of the colony under Claudius and Nero.
In the 2nd century under the Antonine emperors, the city was further developed, including the large amphitheatre. A further renewal of the city in the Severan age, when the temple of Luna was rebuilt in marble and the quarries and the extraction of marble were re-envigorated. The Monettii family of Luni built the first nucleus of the future village of Moneta, not far from the marble quarries.
In 275 Eutychianus, a citizen of Luni, was elected Pope; he died in 283 and is venerated as a Saint by the Catholic Church.
At the end of the 4th century (after 366) many buildings were abandoned including the Capitoline area, the basilica and the large domus, with collapses and despoliation, perhaps due to an earthquake or a crisis in the marble trade which ceased in this period.
At the beginning of the 5th century however, the city was still active: Rutilius Namatianus, who sailed along the coast in 417, records that Luni was surrounded by "white walls". Yhe building recovery of the 5th century, with the renovation of the domus of the Mosaics and the construction of the first cathedral, contradicts a generalised image of poverty.
The Roman city
Amphitheatre of LuniFrom the Domus of Oceanus
The city walls dating fron the early colony were built with gates on four sides and with a noticeable recess in the south-western corner probably due to the proximity of the lagoon, if not the sea itself. The city was laid out on a rectangular grid with the main artery of the decumanus maximus later becoming part of the Via Aemilia Scauri, the main consular road towards Rome and Gaul. The cardo maximus, perpendicular to it, connected the forum to the port; closed to heavy vehicular traffic, the cardo was configured as an extension of the central public forum area, and large rich domus arose along it.
The walls fell out of use in the 1st century AD but in late antiquity, probably within the second half of the 5th century, a reduced circuit was rebuilt around the south-western sector, the so-called Citadel, where the cathedral stood.
The public buildings were completed by the theatre, near the northern corner of the city, and the large amphitheatre of the Antonine age outside the walls.
The Luna Temple
The temple of LunaThe Council of the Gods; pediment A of the Great Temple (Museo archeologico nazionale di Firenze)
Shortly after the foundation of the colony a temple dedicated to Luna, after whom the city was named, was built on the highest point behind the northern walls. In the first phase, the building (16 x 20.5 m) was probably built according to the Etruscan-Italic model: on a stone podium (base), more than 1 m high, reached by a flight of steps, having an entrance area (pronaos) with four columns in two rows and one or three cellas for the statues of the deities.
The decoration was the famous terracotta pediments of a group of sculptures with the council of the gods depicting Luna, Apollo, Dionysus (or the Genius of the Roman People) and the Muses now in the Archeological Museum of Florence. Under Augustus the temple was covered in marble and a large porticoed square was created, as in the forum in Rome. It was also equipped with a triportic with halls paved in opus sectile. A statue with armour was found in the portico, possibly depicting Augustus himself, testifying to the association of his cult after his death with that of Luna.
Around 211 AD, Caracalla carried out a further renovation, commemorated by the inscription engraved on the temple frieze,
by building the arches that formed the base on which the temple stood,
accessible by an impressive flight of stairs.
The forum
Luna Forum
Around the forum, enlarged in the Julio-Claudian age, were arranged the porticoes with shops, the civil basilica and the curia; a short distance away stood the large Republican domus on the eastern side of the square, the Domus of the Mosaics behind the Capitolium, the Domus of the Frescoes along a secondary decumanus to the north of the square, the Western Domus and the Domus of Oceanus near the western edge of the walls. Two other late Republican domus with mosaics and second style paintings have been excavated near Porta Marina, along the cardo maximus: in the second half of the 1st century AD one of the two was defunctionalised to make room for a temple on a high podium.
The Capitolium
On the monumental side of the forum stood the Capitolium, the oldest building in the colony dating to soon after the colony's foundation. It was a temple on a podium measuring 20 by 30.6 m, with a tripartite cella, on polygonal substructures of blocks of Corvus stone filled in a "wasp's nest" fashion, according to a technique widespread in Republican Capitolia. It was adorned with terracotta cladding and later was surrounded by a portico with three sides.
A reconstruction, probably Augustan, renewed the elevation with four-sided Ionic bases and capitals and clad it with marble, while twin temples were added to the sides of the façade, perhaps intended for the new imperial cults. Behind the temple, a monumental U-shaped fountain was surrounded by a colonnade with bases of honorary statues in the Augustan-Tiberian era continuing until the Flavian era, as recorded by an inscription from the Vespasian era.
The civil basilica
On the east side of the capitolium is the basilica in which law was enforced and where commercial trading took place. The building was paved in marble.
The north section of the basilica was occupied by a domus in the 5th century AD and later the building was used as a burial site, as proved by the presence of the tomb near the entrance.
Middle Ages
Captured by the Goths in the early 6th century, Luna was reconquered by the Byzantines in 552, who however lost it to the Lombards in 642. The latter damaged the city's economy, favouring the trades routes that passed through the nearby port of Lucca to the south. Luni had been reduced to a small village by the time of the Lombard king Liutprand. Later, it was a countship and see under Charlemagne, exactly on the border between the Kingdom of Italy and the Papal States.
It was repeatedly sacked by sea pirates, Saracens in 849, and Vikings who settled there in 860. Luna is supposed to have been mistakenly sacked by the Viking leaders Björn Järnsida and Hastein, who thought it was Rome. Hastein tricked his way in by pretending to be a dying Christian convert. The 9thcentury Bishop Saint Ceccardo, believed to have been martyred by the Vikings, is celebrated on 16 June.
In the mid-10th century it experienced the last period of splendour under count Oberto I, who was lord of the whole Ligurian Mark, and momentarily repulsed the pirate threat. However, in the 990s the situation worsened again, and the episcopal see was moved, first to Carrara then, definitively, to Sarzana in 1207 (or 1204). In 1015 Luna was conquered by the Andalusian emir of Denia, Mujāhid, with his Sardinian ships: When Pisa and Genoa beat back his forces, Luni was left destroyed. The spreading of malaria in the area and the silting up of the port contributed to the steep decline of Luni. In 1058 the whole population moved to Sarzana, while other refugees founded Ortonovo and Nicola. The title of bishop and count of Luni remained in use for various centuries, but Petrarch noted Luni as "once famous and powerful, and now only a naked and useless name".
It was only in 1442 that the highly visible remains were identified with Luni and the Gulf of La Spezia recognized as its harbour. The depredation of the Roman ruins of Luni aroused the concern of the local Cardinal Filippo Calandrini, who urged the Humanist pope PiusII to issue a brief (7April 1461) forbidding any further dilapidations. It was of little practical use: When the Palazzo delCommune of Sarzana was constructed in 1471 dressed stone from Luni supplied a considerable part of the building material.(p 112) In 1510 the city council of Sarzana made a gift to the French governor at Genoa of a marble triton found at Luni.(p 114)
Archaeology
The archeological area of Luna.
Luni was first excavated in the 1970s and many of the material brought to light is now housed in the adjacent museum on site. Archeological evidence suggests that the Roman forum had been abandoned as a public space by the end of the sixth centuryCE, its buildings fell to ruin or were demolished and decorative marbles removed. Remains of small wooden houses were found in the space previously occupied by the forum.
↑Catherine Delano Smith, et al., Luni and the Ager Lunensis. The Rise and Fall of a Roman Town and its Territory, in Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. 54, 1986, pp. 81-146
↑Bourdin, Stéphane (2012). Les peuples de l'Italie préromaine. Identités, territoires et relations inter-ethniques en Italie centrale et septentrionale (VIIIe–Ier s. av. J.-C.). Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome 350. Rome: École française de Rome. ISBN 978-2-7283-0907-8 p. 451
↑Turfa, Jean MacIntosh, ed. (2013). The Etruscan world. The Routledge worlds. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 738–746. ISBN 978-0-415-67308-2.
↑Bourdin 2012, p.451. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBourdin2012 (help)
↑Catherine Delano Smith, et al., Luni and the Ager Lunensis. The Rise and Fall of a Roman Town and its Territory, in Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. 54, 1986, pp. 81-146.
↑Catherine Delano Smith, et al., Luni and the Ager Lunensis. The Rise and Fall of a Roman Town and its Territory, in Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. 54, 1986, pp. 123
↑Dyson 1985, pp.104–105, 123–124. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDyson1985 (help)
↑vonder Haegen, Anne Mueller; Strasser, Ruth F. (2013). "The white gold of the Apuan Alps". Art & Architecture: Tuscany. Potsdam: H.F. Ullmann Publishing. p.39. ISBN978-3-8480-0321-1.
↑Alberto Cafaro, Duoviri a Luna: le domus di Porta Marina e le risorse del notabilato lunense all'avvento del Principato (PDF), in Fasti Online Documents & Research, vol. 560, 2023
↑Chiara Bozzi, Il tempio di Luna e la sua decorazione architettonica, in Pietra di Luna, pp. 59-62
↑Claudius Rutilius Namatianus, De reditu suo, II, 63-64
↑Catherine Delano Smith, et al., Luni and the Ager Lunensis. The Rise and Fall of a Roman Town and its Territory, in Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. 54, 1986, pp. 81-146.
↑lberto Cafaro, Duoviri a Luna: le domus di Porta Marina e le risorse del notabilato lunense all'avvento del Principato (PDF), in Fasti Online Documents & Research, vol. 560, 2023 p.8
↑Alberto Cafaro, Duoviri a Luna: le domus di Porta Marina e le risorse del notabilato lunense all'avvento del Principato (PDF), in Fasti Online Documents & Research, vol. 560, 2023
↑Antonio Frova (a cura di), Scavi di Luni. Relazione preliminare delle campagne di scavo 1970-1971, Roma, L'Erma di Bretschneider, 1973
↑Ward-Perkins, B. (1997). "Continuitists, catastrophists, and the towns of post-Roman Northern Italy". Papers of the British School at Rome. 65: 157–176.
↑Cuntz (1904). "[no title cited]". Jahreshefte des Osterreich Arch. Instituts. 46.
This articleincorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:Ashby, Thomas (1911). "Luna". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol.17 (11thed.). Cambridge University Press. p.123. That, in turn, cites Dennis, G. (1883). Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria. London, UK: John Murray. ii. 63. (T. As.).
