LEGHORN (Ital. Livorno, Fr. Livourne), a city of Tuscany, Italy, chief town of the province of the same name, which consists of the commune of Leghorn and the islands of Elba and Gorgona. The town is the seat of a bishopric and of a large naval academy—the only one in Italy—and the third largest commercial port in the kingdom, situated on the west coast, 12 m. S.W. of Pisa by rail, 10 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 78,308 (town), 96,528 (commune). It is built along the seashore upon a healthy and fertile tract of land, which forms, as it were, an oasis in a zone of Maremma. Behind is a range of hills, the most conspicuous of which, the Monte Nero, is crowned by a frequented pilgrimage church and also by villas and hotels, to which a funicular railway runs. The town itself is almost entirely modern. The 16th-century Fortezza Vecchia, guarding the harbour, is picturesque, and there is a good bronze statue of the grand duke Ferdinand I. by Pietro Tacca (1577-1640), a pupil of Giovanni da Bologna. The lofty Torre del Marzocco, erected in 1423 by the Florentines, is fine. The façade of the cathedral was designed by Inigo Jones. The old Protestant cemetery contains the tombs of Tobias Smollett (d. 1771) and Francis Horner (d. 1817). There is also a large synagogue founded in 1581. The exchange, the chamber of commerce and the clearing-house (one of the oldest in the world, dating from 1764) are united under one roof in the Palazzo del Commercio, opened in 1907. Several improvements have been carried out in the city and port, and the place is developing rapidly as an industrial centre. The naval academy, formerly established partly at Naples and partly at Genoa, has been transferred to Leghorn. Some of the navigable canals which connected the harbour with the interior of the city have been either modified or filled up. Several streets have been widened, and a road along the shore has been transformed into a fine and shady promenade. Leghorn is the principal sea-bathing resort in this part of Italy, the season lasting from the end of June to the end of August. A spa for the use of the Acque della Salute has been constructed. Leghorn is on the main line from Pisa to Rome; another line runs to Colle Salvetti. A considerable number of important steamship lines call here. The new rectilinear mole, sanctioned in 1881, has been built out into the sea for a distance of 600 yds. from the old Vegliaia lighthouse, and the docking basin has been lengthened to 490 ft. Inside the breakwater the depth varies from 10 to 26 ft. The total trade of the port increased from £3,853,593 in 1897 to £5,675,285 in 1905 and £7,009,758 in 1906 (the large increase being mainly due to a rise of over £1,000,000 in imports—mainly of coal, building materials and machinery), the average ratio of imports to exports being as three to two. The imports consist principally of machinery, coal, grain, dried fish, tobacco and hides, and the exports of hemp, hides, olive oil, soap, coral, candied fruit, wine, straw hats, boracic acid, mercury, and marble and alabaster. In 1885 the total number of vessels that entered the port was 4281 of 1,434,000 tons; of these, 1251 of 750,000 tons were foreign; 688,000 tons of merchandise were loaded and unloaded. In 1906, after considerable fluctuations during the interval, the total number that entered was 4623 vessels of 2,372,551 tons; of these, 935 of 1,002,119 tons were foreign; British ships representing about half this tonnage. In 1906 the total imports and exports amounted to 1,470,000 tons including coasting trade. A great obstacle to the development of the port is the absence of modern mechanical appliances for loading and unloading vessels, and of quay space and dock accommodation. The older shipyards have been considerably extended, and shipbuilding is actively carried on, especially by the Orlando yard which builds large ships for the Italian navy, while new industries—namely, glass-making and copper and brass-founding, electric power works, a cement factory, porcelain factories, flour-mills, oil-mills, a cotton yarn spinning factory, electric plant works, a ship-breaking yard, a motor-boat yard, &c.—have been established. Other important firms, Tuscan wine-growers, oil-growers, timber traders, colour manufacturers, &c., have their head offices and stores at Leghorn, with a view to export. The former British “factory” here was of great importance for the trade with the Levant, but was closed in 1825. The two villages of Ardenza and Antignano, which form part of the commune, have acquired considerable importance, the former in part for sea-bathing.
The earliest mention of Leghorn occurs in a document of 891, relating to the first church here; in 1017 it is called a castle. In the 13th century the Pisans tried to attract a population to the spot, but it was not till the 14th that Leghorn became a rival of Porto Pisano at the mouth of the Arno, which it was destined ultimately to supplant. It was at Leghorn that Urban V. and Gregory XI. landed on their return from Avignon. When in 1405 the king of France sold Pisa to the Florentines he kept possession of Leghorn; but he afterwards (1407) sold it for 26,000 ducats to the Genoese, and from the Genoese the Florentines purchased it in 1421. In 1496 the city showed its devotion to its new masters by a successful defence against Maximilian and his allies, but it was still a small place; in 1551 there were only 749 inhabitants. With the rise of the Medici came a rapid increase of prosperity; Cosmo, Francis and Ferdinand erected fortifications and harbour works, warehouses and churches, with equal liberality, and the last especially gave a stimulus to trade by inviting “men of the East and the West, Spanish and Portuguese, Greeks, Germans, Italians, Hebrews, Turks, Moors, Armenians, Persians and others,” to settle and traffic in the city, as it became in 1606. Declared free and neutral in 1691, Leghorn was permanently invested with these privileges by the Quadruple Alliance in 1718; but in 1796 Napoleon seized all the hostile vessels in its port. It ceased to be a free city by the law of 1867.
(T. As.)
LEGION (Lat. legio), in early Rome, the levy of citizens marching out en masse to war, like the citizen-army of any other primitive state. As Rome came to need more than one army at once and warfare grew more complex, legio came to denote a unit of 4000-6000 heavy infantry (including, however, at first some light infantry and at various times a handful of cavalry) who were by political status Roman citizens and were distinct from the “allies,” auxilia, and other troops of the second class. The legionaries were regarded as the best and most characteristic Roman soldiers, the most trustworthy and truly Roman; they enjoyed better pay and conditions of service than the “auxiliaries.” In A.D. 14 (death of Augustus) there were 25 such legions: later, the number was slightly increased; finally about A.D. 290 Diocletian reduced the size and greatly increased the number of the legions. Throughout, the dominant features of the legions were heavy infantry and Roman citizenship. They lost their importance when the Barbarian invasions altered the character of ancient warfare and made cavalry a more important arm than infantry, in the late 3rd and 4th centuries A.D. In the middle ages the word “legion” seems not to have been used as a technical term. In modern times it has been employed for organizations of an unusual or exceptional character, such as a corps of foreign volunteers or mercenaries. See further [Roman Army].
(F. J. H.)
The term legion has been used to designate regiments or corps of all arms in modern times, perhaps the earliest example of this being the Provincial Legions formed in France by Francis I. (see [Infantry]). Napoleon, in accordance with this precedent, employed the word to designate the second-line formations which he maintained in France and which supplied the Grande Armée with drafts. The term “Foreign Legion” is often used for irregular volunteer corps of foreign sympathizers raised by states at war, often by smaller states fighting for independence. Unlike most foreign legions the “British Legion” which, raised in Great Britain and commanded by Sir de Lacy Evans (q.v.), fought in the Carlist wars, was a regularly enlisted and paid force. The term “foreign legion” is colloquially but incorrectly applied to-day to the Régiments étrangers in the French service, which are composed of adventurous spirits of all nationalities and have been employed in many arduous colonial campaigns.
The most famous of the corps that have borne the name of legion in modern times was the King’s German Legion (see Beamish’s history of the corps). The electorate of Hanover being in 1805 threatened by the French, and no effective resistance being considered possible, the British government wished to take the greater part of the Hanoverian army into its service. But the acceptance by the Hanoverian government of this offer was delayed until too late, and it was only after the French had entered the country and the army as a unit had been disbanded that the formation of the “King’s German Regiment,” as it was at first called, was begun in England. This enlisted not only ex-Hanoverian soldiers, but other Germans as well, as individuals. Lieut.-Colonel von der Decken and Major Colin Halkett were the officers entrusted with the formation of the new corps, which in January 1805 had become a corps of all arms with the title of King’s German Legion. It then consisted of a dragoon and a hussar regiment, five batteries, two light and four line battalions and an engineer section, all these being afterwards increased. Its services included the abortive German expedition of November 1805, the expedition to Copenhagen in 1807, the minor sieges and combats in Sicily 1808-14, the Walcheren expedition of 1809, the expedition to Sweden under Sir John Moore in 1808, and the campaign of 1813 in north Germany. But its title to fame is its part in the Peninsular War, in which from first to last it was an acknowledged corps d’élite—its cavalry especially, whose services both on reconnaissance and in battle were of the highest value. The exploit of the two dragoon regiments of the Legion at Garcia Hernandez after the battle of Salamanca, where they charged and broke up two French infantry squares and captured some 1400 prisoners, is one of the most notable incidents in the history of the cavalry arm (see Sir E. Wood’s Achievements of Cavalry). A general officer of the Legion, Charles Alten (q.v.), commanded the British Light Division in the latter part of the war. It should be said that the Legion was rarely engaged as a unit. It was considered rather as a small army of the British type, most of which served abroad by regiments and battalions while a small portion and depot units were at home, the total numbers under arms being about 25,000. In 1815 the period of service of the corps had almost expired when Napoleon returned from Elba, but its members voluntarily offered to prolong their service. It lost heavily at Waterloo, in which Baring’s battalion of the light infantry distinguished itself by its gallant defence of La Haye Sainte. The strength of the Legion at the time of its disbandment was 1100 officers and 23,500 men. A short-lived “King’s German Legion” was raised by the British government for service in the Crimean War. Certain Hanoverian regiments of the German army to-day represent the units of the Legion and carry Peninsular battle-honours on their standards and colours.
LEGITIM, or Bairn’s Part, in Scots law, the legal share of the movable property of a father due on his death to his children. If a father dies leaving a widow and children, the movable property is divided into three equal parts; one-third part is divided equally among all the children who survive, although they may be of different marriages (the issue of predeceased children do not share); another third goes to the widow as her jus relictae, and the remaining third, called “dead’s part,” may be disposed of by the father by will as he pleases. If the father die intestate the dead’s part goes to the children as next of kin. Should the father leave no widow, one-half of the movable estate is legitim and one-half dead’s part. In claiming legitim, however, credit must be given for any advance made by the father out of his movable estate during his lifetime.