After the death of Margravine
Matilda of Tuscany in 1115, the city began to constitute itself an independent
commune, with an administration officially acknowledged by Margrave
Conrad in 1120 and by Emperor
Frederick in 1162. The city bought the feudal rights from Margrave
Welf VI in 1160, hence became subject only to the emperors. For more than 500 years, Lucca remained as an independent republic. At the end of the 12th century, Lucca and other cities of Tuscany created an alliance to fight the neighbour feudal lords and subjugate their lands. This allowed Lucca and
Florence in particular to control large territories and to compete for military supremacy in the region. The 13th century was characterised by political fights inside many communes, including Lucca. As a consequence, the republic witnessed the rise of the populist faction and change in government structure, as well as participating in a long series of wars between
Guelphs and Ghibellines. In 1273 and again in 1277 Lucca was ruled by a guelph
capitano del popolo (captain of the people) named
Luchetto Gattilusio. Lucca in the 14th century became one of the most important cities of the Italian
Middle Ages. There were many noble families in power, such as the Nuccorini, who from 1300 to 1371 were enrolled in the Supreme Magistrate of the Elderly.
Dante Alighieri included many references to the great feudal families that had jurisdiction there, with administrative and judicial powers. Dante himself spent many of his years in exile in Lucca. In 1314, internal discord allowed
Uguccione della Faggiuola to make himself lord of Pisa and then to conquer Lucca. Revolts in the two cities quickly ended Uguccione's regime. In Lucca, the citizens gave the lordship over their Republic to the ghibelline
Castruccio Castracani, member of the
House of Antelminelli and leader of great political and military capacity. His reign represented the highest peak of the Republic's power, whose territories included the
Garfagnana to the north, the coast from the city of
Carrara to
Pisa to the west, the city of
Pistoia to the east (under the codomain of Lucca and Florence), and south the
Valdarno constantly disputed with the Republic of Florence. Castracani also succeeded in making Lucca the only antagonist to the expansion of
Republic of Florence leading to the victory in the
Battle of Altopascio, in 1325, where he defeated the powerful Florentine army chasing them up to the walls of Florence. When Castruccio died, the city fell into a period of anarchy which saw it subject at first to the dominion of a military company, which had Marco from the
House of Visconti as its leader and hostage at the same time. Later the republic was repeatedly sold to different lords who were unable to exploit it due to the hostility of the Republic of Florence. Subsequently, it was acquired by the
Republic of Pisa and administered by its Lord, Giovanni Dell'Agnello. Having regained its freedom in 1370, Lucca returned to a republican government and with a shrewd foreign policy gained remarkable fame in Europe thanks to its bankers and the silk trade. In the thirteenth century Lucca became an important silk manufacturing center thanks to the arrival of immigrant weavers from
Sicily. It was known for brocaded silks with decorative designs of
Byzantine or Chinese inspiration repeated diagonally rather than vertically. From the early fifteenth century on, its workshops turned out silk fabrics decorated with religious scenes as well as patterned velvets. Lucca achieved international fame for its workmanship of the more elaborate and costly fabrics, thanks to its technological edge in weaving and dyeing, and its closely guarded monopoly over advanced technologies such as looms and combs for brocades and velvets and the silk twisting mill. Lucca's skilled artisans could match the best wares of Damascus. Until the end of the Renaissance the Tuscan city was the main Italian center of production for silk cloths, exported all over Europe and even to
Asia: when the Portuguese arrived in
Calcutta in the early sixteenth century, they found Lucca silk in the
bazaars. ==Renaissance and onwards==