(T. As.)
[1] Some confusion has arisen owing to the similarity of the names Luca and Luna; the theory of E. Bormann in Corp. Inscrip. Latin. (Berlin, 1888), xi. 295 is here followed.
LUCCA, BAGNI DI (Baths of Lucca, formerly Bagno a Corsena), a commune of Tuscany, Italy, in the province of Lucca, containing a number of famous watering-places. Pop. (1901) 13,685. The springs are situated in the valley of the Lima, a tributary of the Serchio; and the district is known in the early history of Lucca as the Vicaria di Val di Lima. Ponte Serraglio (16 m. N. of Lucca by rail) is the principal village (pop. 1312), but there are warm springs and baths also at Villa, Docce Bassi, Bagno Caldo, &c. The springs do not seem to have been known to the Romans. Bagno a Corsena is first mentioned in 1284 by Guidone de Corvaia, a Pisan historian (Muratori, R.I.S. vol. xxii.). Fallopius, who gave them credit for the cure of his own deafness, sounded their praises in 1569; and they have been more or less in fashion since. The temperature of the water varies from 98° to 130° Fahr.; in all cases it gives off carbonic acid gas and contains lime, magnesium and sodium products. In the village of Bagno Caldo there is a hospital constructed largely at the expense of Nicholas Demidoff in 1826. In the valley of the Serchio, 3 m. below Ponte a Serraglio, is the medieval Ponte del Diavolo (1322) with its lofty central arch.
LUCCEIUS, LUCIUS, Roman orator and historian, friend and correspondent of Cicero. A man of considerable wealth and literary tastes, he may be compared with Atticus. Disgusted at his failure to become consul in 60, he retired from public life, and devoted himself to writing a history of the Social and Civil Wars. This was nearly completed, when Cicero earnestly requested him to write a separate history of his (Cicero’s) consulship. Cicero had already sung his own praises in both Greek and Latin, but thought that a panegyric by Lucceius, who had taken considerable interest in the affairs of that critical period, would have greater weight. Cicero offered to supply the material, and hinted that Lucceius need not sacrifice laudation to accuracy. Lucceius almost promised, but did not perform. Nothing remains of any such work or of his history. In the civil war he took the side of Pompey; but, having been pardoned by Caesar, returned to Rome, where he lived in retirement until his death.
Cicero’s Letters (ed. Tyrrell and Purser), especially Ad Fam. v. 12; and Orelli, Onomasticon Tullianum.
LUCCHESINI, GIROLAMO (1751-1825), Prussian diplomatist, was born at Lucca on the 7th of May 1751, the eldest son of Marquis Lucchesini. In 1779 he went to Berlin where Frederick the Great gave him a court appointment, making use of him in his literary relations with Italy. Frederick William II., who recognized his gifts for diplomacy, sent him in 1787 to Rome to obtain the papal sanction for the appointment of a coadjutor to the bishop of Mainz, with a view to strengthening the German Fürstenbund. In 1788 he was sent to Warsaw, and brought about a rapprochement with Prussia and a diminution of Russian influence at Warsaw. He was accredited ambassador to the king and republic of Poland on the 12th of April 1789. Frederick William was at that time intriguing with Turkey, then at war with Austria and Russia. Lucchesini was to rouse Polish feeling against Russia, and to secure for Prussia the concourse of Poland in the event of war with Austria and Russia. All his power of intrigue was needed in the conduct of these hazardous negotiations, rendered more difficult by the fact that Prussian policy excluded the existence of a strong Polish government. A Prusso-Polish alliance was concluded in March 1790. Lucchesini had been sent in January of that year to secure the alliance of Saxony against Austria, and in September he was sent to Sistova, where representatives of the chief European powers were engaged in settling the terms of peace between Austria and Turkey, which were finally agreed upon on the 4th of August 1791. Before he returned to Warsaw the Polish treaty of which he had been the chief author had become a dead letter owing to the engagements made between Prussia and Austria at Reichenbach in July 1790, and Prussia was already contemplating the second partition of Poland. He was recalled at the end of 1791, and in July 1792 he joined Frederick William in the invasion of France. He was to be Prussian ambassador in Paris when the allied forces should have reinstated the authority of Louis XVI. He was opposed alike to the invasion of France and the Austrian alliance, but his prepossessions did not interfere with his skilful conduct of the negotiations with Kellermann after the allies had been forced to retire by Dumouriez’s guns at Valmy, nor with his success in securing the landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt’s assistance against France. In 1793 he was appointed ambassador to Vienna, with the ostensible object of securing financial assistance for the Rhenish campaign. He accompanied Frederick William through the Polish campaign of 1793-94, and in the autumn returned to Vienna. His anti-Austrian bias made him extremely unpopular with the Austrian court, which asked in vain for his recall in 1795. In 1797, after a visit to Italy in which he had an interview with Napoleon at Bologna, these demands were renewed and acceded to. In 1800 he was sent by Frederick William III. on a special mission to Paris. Despatches in which he expressed his distrust of Bonaparte’s peaceful professions and his conviction of the danger of the continuance of a neutral policy were intercepted by the first consul, who sought his recall, but eventually accepted him as regular ambassador (1802). He consistently sought friendly relations between France and Prussia, but he warned his government in 1806 of Napoleon’s intention of restoring Hanover to George III. and of Murat’s aggressions in Westphalia. He was superseded as ambassador in Paris in September just before the outbreak of war. After the disaster of Jena on the 14th of October he had an interview with Duroc near Wittenberg to seek terms of peace. After two unsuccessful attempts at negotiation, the first draft being refused by Napoleon, the second by Frederick William, he joined the Prussian court at Königsberg only to learn that his services were no longer required. He then joined the court of Elisa, grand duchess of Tuscany, at Lucca and Florence, and after Napoleon’s fall devoted himself to writing. He died on the 20th of October 1825.