Livorno

Diversis Gentibus Una. This is Livorno’s powerful motto reproduced on the first city’s coin the unghero, a golden taler minted in 1655 by the Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici. Actually, it was Ferdinando II’s grandfather the maker of the city’s destiny. With the livornine, a set of specific laws, Ferdinando I invited diverse people considered to be attractive to settle down in Livorno and making the city a splendid laboratory of pluralism (and a rich free port – porto franco). He declared:

a tutti Voi Mercanti di qualsivoglia Nazione, Levantini, Ponentini, Spagnuoli, Portughesi, Grechi, Tedeschi, Italiani, Ebrei, Turchi, Mori, Armeni, Persiani, dicendo ad ognuno di essi salute […] per il suo desiderio di accrescere l’animo a forestieri di venire a frequentare lor traffichi, merchantie nella sua diletta Città di Pisa e Porto e scalo di Livorno con habitarvi, sperandone habbia a resultare utile a tutta Italia, nostri sudditi e massime a poveri.

Ferdinando I de’ Medici – 30th July 159
Entrance of Livorno’s port, end of 18th century by Giuseppe Bardi Publisher (source British Library website)

Livorno was the seat of a flourishing Portuguese Jews’ community, a Greek diaspora, an Armenian community and a British factory.

Loading of a cargo in the Livorno’s port by Stefano della Bella 1654–55 (source MET website)