Piazza San Michele — The Roman Forum Never Quite Left
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
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Transcript
Piazza San Michele looks medieval, but its position is Roman. Lucca became a Latin colony in 180 BC, and the forum occupied roughly this area where the principal north-south and east-west streets crossed.
Via Fillungo follows the old cardo, while later streets preserve the east-west axis. The church name San Michele in Foro literally remembers the forum.
This is urban archaeology without excavation. Lucca’s Roman plan stayed useful, so later markets, churches and civic life kept returning to the same crossroads. The oldest layer survives less as ruins than as the geometry of everyday movement.