Other ancient toponyms include Salviano (Salvius) and Antignano (Ante ignem), which was the place situated before Ardenza (Ardentia), where beacons directed the ships to Porto Pisano.

[11] Seat of the crusading and corsairing Order of Saint Stephen after 1561, distinctive for its aggressive approach towards the Muslim world, Livorno became a major Mediterranean slave trade hub in the early modern period, rivalling Malta's.

In the late 1580s, Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, declared Livorno a free port (porto franco), which meant that the goods traded here were duty-free within the area of the town's control.

Also expanding Christian tolerance, the laws offered the right of public freedom of religion and amnesty to people having to gain penance from clergy in order to conduct civil business.

On 19 March 1606, Ferdinando I de' Medici elevated Livorno to the rank of city; the ceremony was held in the Fortezza Vecchia Chapel of Francis of Assisi.

Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany issued in 1591 a decree encouraging Armenians to settle in Livorno to increase its trade with the Ottoman Empire and western Asia.

The conflicts between Great Britain and France during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, with associated port embargoes, piracy, and confiscation of cargoes, played out to the advantage of those Greek merchants willing to accept risk.

The port processes thousands of cruise-ship passengers of the following cruise line: many of whom take arranged buses to inland destinations as Florence, Pisa and Siena.

Destroyed during World War II was rebuilt in 1950;[36] in 1999 underwent extensive reconstruction, on a plan by Studio Gregotti and works carried out by Opera Laboratori Fiorentini, was opened definitely on 31 July 2010.

[38] Dedicated to painter Giovanni Fattori, the museum mainly featuring contemporary art from the 19th-century was inaugurated in 1994 and is placed inside Villa Mimbelli, an 18th-century construction surrounded by a vast park.

The commerce practised by the Jews community increased the property of the synagogue allowing a varied religious heritage of Dutch, Florentine, Venetian, Roman and Northern African origin.

The new rione (district), called Venezia Nuova [it], was built in an area gained to the sea, intersected by canals and linked to the town with bridges, for this reason, Venetians skilled workers were recruited.

In the 1700s Venezia Nuova was the district of the Consuls of the Nations and of the most important international retailers who had the warehouses filled with goods from everywhere waiting to be shipped by sea to the most different destinations.

The Venezia Nuova district retains much of its original town planning and architectural features such as the bridges, narrow lanes, the houses of the nobility, churches as Santa Caterina da Siena and San Ferdinando, and a dense network of canals that once served to link its warehouses to the port.

Ferdinando I commissioned it to Giovanni Bandini in 1595 to carry out a monument in white Carrara marble to represent him in the uniform of the Grand master of the Order of Saint Stephen which in that period prevailed in several naval battles against the Barbary pirates.

[46] During World War II the monument was transferred to a protected place in order to avoid being damaged by allied attacks, the statue of Ferdinando I was hidden in the Pisa Charterhouse and the four moors in the Medici Villa at Poggio a Caiano.

At the beginning of the 19th century arose the need to connect the Medicean road system of the Pentagono del Buontalenti to the new eastern districts of the town, on the other side of the Fosso Reale, and the requirement to dismantle the city gate Porta a Pisa.

A new parterre, built between 1925 and 1928 by Enrico Salvais and Luigi Pastore, was formed by a series of flower beds and a walkway which follow the outline of the sea with numerous balustrades named after Costanzo Ciano.

Restored in 1745 by Bernardino Ciurini and Antonio Fabbri a double white marble stairway and a small bell tower on the top of the façade were added.

With the settlement of the Podestà in the fascist period was carried out a new enlargement in 1929 by Enrico Salvais and Luigi Pastore transforming the adjacent former fire station in the council hall.

[61] The cathedral was completely destroyed in 1943 from the Allied bombardment during World War II; it was then rebuilt respecting the original structure except for the two marble porches added to the transepts and was consecrated on 21 December 1952 by Bishop Giovanni Piccioni.

The Church of the Madonna is placed on the street of the same name which connects directly the city centre with the district Venezia Nuova through the John of Nepomuk bridge.

[65] The baroque façade was built in 1708 presumably on a project by Giovanni Baratta with a triangular pediment and Doric order and was decorated by the statues of Meekness and Innocence by Andrea Vaccà.

Fortezza Vecchia is a massive fortification completed on 1 April 1534 under Alessandro de' Medici; it was built in red-brick with sloping walls and the interposition of clear stones, it has a quadrangular plant with a perimeter of 1500 meters and was equipped with 24 cannons to protect each side.

The successor Francesco I de' Medici built a small palace toward the sea, later became Porto Mediceo, on the top of Canaviglia bastion situated at the entrance of Vecchia Darsena.

[68] Fortezza Vecchia changed its function to the coming of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine in 1737, by a defensive structure to a military college for officers of the Army of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany (1769) and afterwards in garrison (1795).

The original project was then modified by Don Giovanni de' Medici, Claudio Cogorano and Alessandro Pieroni to allow the construction of the Fortezza Nuova in order to strengthen the military apparatus of the town.

[72] The Fortezza Nuova has been used for military purpose until the end of World War II, inside were built barracks and warehouses and a chapel dedicated to the Immaculate Conception.

The plan gave no information regarding the function of the new urban area, indicating only a series of building blocks within a road system absolutely orthogonal, cardo and Decumanus Maximus.

During World War II the building was used by the German command as headquarters, and later taken by the American forces;[88] in the post-war period was restored in order to adapt it into library.