Leghorn, Italy
Leghorn (Italian Livorno) is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on
the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. An
important area under the Medici in the Renaissance with many
important landmarks from the sixteenth century, Leghorn was
enlarged at the end of the eighteenth century by Leopold II (1747-1792), who also opened
the city to foreign merchants. It was a free port from 1675
until 1860, when it became part of the Kingdom of Italy.
Late in the eighteenth century Leghorn became a favorite haunt of
British expatriates. The novelist Tobias Smollett is buried in
the Protestant cemetery in Leghorn. Percy Bysshe Shelley visited
the city in 1819, and Byron stayed there in 1822. Its unique cosmopolitanism
is captured in the entry for the city in the
4th edition of the Encyclpaedia Brittanica (1797).
