LUCCA , 17km northeast of Pisa, is the most graceful of Tuscany’s rustic capitals, set inside a ring of Renaissance walls fronted by gardens and huge bastions. It’s quiet without being dull and absorbs its few tourists with ease. The city lies at the heart of one of Italy’s richest agricultural regions, and it has prospered since Roman times. Its heyday was the eleventh to fourteenth centuries, when the silk trade brought wealth and, for a time, political power. Lucca first lost its independence to Pisa in 1314, then, under Castruccio Castracani, forged an empire in the west of Tuscany. Pisa and Pistoia both fell, and, but for Castracani’s untimely death in 1325, Lucca might well have taken Florence. In subsequent centuries it remained largely independent until falling into the hands of general and the Bourbons. The composer Giacomo Puccini was born here in 1858. Today Lucca is reckoned among the wealthiest and most conservative cities in Tuscany, its prosperity gained largely through silk and high-quality olive oil .

The City

Lucca is a delightful place simply to wander at random, with much of the historic centre free from traffic. The historical heart of town is the site of the Roman forum, now the square surrounding San Michele in Foro (daily 7.30am-12.30pm & 3-6pm), a church with one of Tuscany’s most exquisite facades . Most of the present structure dates from the century after 1070, but the church is unfinished, as the money ran out before the body of the building could be raised to the level of the facade. The effect is wonderful, the upper loggias and the windows fronting air. Its Pisan-inspired intricacy is a triumph of poetic eccentricity: apiece of its myriad columns is different – some twisted, others sculpted or candy-striped. The impressive campanile is Lucca’s tallest. It would be hard to follow this act and the interior barely tries; the best work of art is a beautifully framed painting of SS Jerome, Sebastian, Roch and Helena by Filippino Lippi in the right-hand nave. The composer Giacomo Puccini was born a few metres away, on December 22, 1858, at Corte San Lorenzo 9; his father and grandfather had both been organists at San Michele. The family home is now a study centre and small museum, the Casa di Puccini (Tues-Sun: June-Sept 10am-6pm; March-May & Oct-Dec 10am-1pm & 3-6pm; L5000/¬2.58; www.puccini.it ). Inside you’ll find the Steinway on which Puccini wrote Turandot and some scores and ephemera. Just west of here is the Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi , Via Galli Tassi 43 (Tues-Sat 9am-7pm, Sun 9am-2pm; L8000/¬4.13; joint ticket with Museo Guinigi L12,000/¬6.20). This seventeenth-century palazzo is worth seeing for its magnificent Rococo decor: from a vast, frescoed Music Salon , you pass through three drawing-rooms hung with seventeenth-century Flemish tapestries to a gilded bridal suite , complete with lavish canopied bed. Rooms 11-14 in the far wing hold an indifferent Pinacoteca , the highlight of which is Pontormo’s portrait of Alessandro de’ Medici.