| Abstract: | Rich town, center of marble trading, and important port of transit during the Imperial Age, Luni outlived the end of the Roman Empire, although weakend, and experienced without major destruction domination by Byzantines and Longoboards, and annexation to the Carolingian kingdom. Luni held an advantage over other cities of Roman origin in lying along one of the most important land-based routes of the Middle Ages and in lying close to the sea on the mouth of a major river. Yet while neighboring cities were flourishing, Luni reached the lowest point in a decline that culminated in its final abandonment in 1204. The primary cause lay in the vast effects of the area's environmental deterioration. The natural modifications made it nearly impossible to restore its commercial and Mediterranean trading systems and for its population to grow, after the tenth century. Even the presence in town throughout the medieval period of a powerful episcopal authority could not ensure Luni's survival. For the period between the tenth and the thirteenth centuries, the documentation shows considerable activity on the part of the bishops. This was oriented towards the new and more profitable settlements in the countryside around Luni, however, rather than towards the organization and development of lasting economic structures in the city itself. Financial and social elites never arose in the city as in coeval Italian civitates and Luni was unable to become part of the new system of commercial and political relationships in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and was shortly thereafter abandoned. |
