Terrazza Mascagni

Where Livorno meets the sea, a Liberty terrace strides into the waves on a checkerboard of black and white tiles. Terrazza Mascagni honours the composer of Cavalleria rusticana and gives the city its favourite place to watch the water.

Why it matters

Every port city has a spot where it turns to face the sea; Livorno's is this paved belvedere at the end of Viale Italia. Begun in the first quarter of the twentieth century as a seaward piazza and later dedicated to the composer Pietro Mascagni, born in Livorno, the terrace extends the urban fabric out over the water on a forest of small columns and a pavement of black and white tiles laid like a chessboard. The terrace is a prominent element of Livorno's public waterfront. Restored at the end of the 1990s after repeated storm damage, the terrace expresses Livorno's enduring bond with the Tyrrhenian Sea.

What to notice

The checkerboard pavement extends in long perspective toward the balustrade, where thousands of small columns frame the sea and sky. The seaward outlook encompasses the cliff suburbs, the islands of the Tuscan Archipelago and the Secche della Meloria, the sandbank associated with Livorno's naval history. At the seaward edge stands a reconstruction of the original music gazebo. Nearby landmarks include the historic Bagni Pancaldi, the Grand Hotel Palazzo, the church of San Jacopo in Acquaviva and the Aquarium of Livorno.

Context and history

The terrace's story mirrors the twentieth century. The first layout of the seaward square was drawn in the mid-1920s by the municipal engineer Enrico Salvais with the collaboration of Luigi Pastore, opening as a belvedere with balustrade and checkered pavement; a music kiosk designed by the architect Ghino Venturi, donated by the consul Pedro Bossio, was inaugurated in 1931. The Fascist regime dedicated the square to Costanzo Ciano; war destroyed the gazebo, and post-war rebuilding enlarged the terrace northwards with rubble from the bombed centre, giving it its present sinuous outline and dedication to Mascagni. Sea storms later damaged the structure, and a comprehensive restoration at the end of the 1990s repaired the terrace and reinstated the kiosk. Few Livornese places carry so many layers of the city's public memory in a single pavement.