Porta Elisa: A Bold Gambit by Elisa Baciocchi, Duchess of Lucca

The eastern gate standing mightily within Lucca's city walls is none other than Porta Elisa, a triumph of Elisa Baciocchi, a member of the Baciocchi dynasty. Once shielded from the innumerable changes of the world, Elisa yearned to modernize Lucca and open it to the globe. What better method than constructing a grandiose gate to herald the city's arrival on the world stage? However, the city's existing walls held no eastern gate, a peculiarity born of fear, not of assault, but of a clandestine one, as the path to Florence, the principal threat, led towards the city from that very direction. Under the rule of the Napoleonic Empire, the daunting eastern route was usurped and rebranded as a monument to progress: Porta Elisa, a title bestowed upon the gate not strictly in honor of Elisa Baciocchi, but her grandfather, Vincenzo Baciocchi, who held the title of Duke of Lucca at the time.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons