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Article: The church of San Frediano, Lucca. (Italy)
- Article from:
- History Today
- Article date:
- May 1, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 History Today Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Like so many of Europe's older cities, not least in Italy, Lucca still clearly displays its Roman origins in its street-plan. One of its numerous twelfth- and thirteenth-century churches, San Michele in Foro, stands on the site of the forum, where the north-south and east-west axes of the Roman city meet, and the Roman amphitheatre survives in outline, surrounded by medieval houses. The cathedral nestled in the south-east corner of the Roman city, just inside the sixteenth-century ramparts which now so strikingly delineate the historic city.
For centuries, here as elsewhere, the cathedral would have had the only baptismal font in the city; but around the year ...