JUST outside the walls of Sarzana, in Liguria, and scattered over about five or six acres of the partly cultivated plain, may be found portions of the remains of the once important and thriving Etruscan city of Luni. Though it is accessible from La Spezia within half an hour by railway, yet it lies sufficiently off the beaten track of travellers to this part of Italy to be scarcely mentioned in the guide-books, and therefore it has escaped the notice which it deserves. Some account of the spot and of its early history, so far as I have been able to trace it, may therefore be acceptable. The place was at one time a trading town upon the Gulf of Spezia, and is said to have been founded by the Etrurian Tarchon.[33] (See Strabo, lib. v.; Cato, Origines xxv.) Luni--“La Superba,” as she was proudly called of old--was situated at the head of a bay, or rather arm, of the Mediterranean, forming a commodious and deep natural harbour, and backed by that spur of the Apennines which forms the Carrara Mountains, so famous for their exquisite marble. But for the numerous fragments of ancient anchors, chains, masts of vessels, and other objects which are now and again being brought to light, and for the vast blocks of stone forming the ancient quay of the town, some of which may still be seen _in situ_, it would be difficult to realise that here was the identical port so admiringly mentioned by Ennius and by Strabo, and so famous as having sent forth armed vessels three thousand years ago to assist the Greeks in the siege of Troy, and from which so many thousands of tons of the Carrara marbles were exported to Italy and other countries in more recent times. It is on record that Titus Manlius here embarked the army with which in B.C. 537 he started to quell the rebellion of the Sardi. From this port, also, the Emperor Claudius sailed on his attempt to conquer Britain. Luni continued to rank as one of the most prosperous cities of Etruria, till it was harassed and invaded by the indomitable Ligurians, who made themselves masters of it. Wrested from them by the Romans, and subjected to the Republic, the power of Luni rapidly declined; and, as though to hasten her ruin, successive inundations of the River Magra choked up her harbour with their deposits, while the sea, as if in concert with its tributary, receded from her shore. In 1015 A.D. Luni was taken and partially destroyed by the Saracens, and in 1185 Frederick Barbarossa handed her over to the authorities of the Christian Church, who made the town an Episcopal See. In connection with the early history of the neighbouring city of La Spezia will be found the names of various bishops of Luni; but the latter see extended over a period of little more than a century, for we find that in consequence of the malarious and deadly exhalations arising from the stagnant pools left by the Magra’s floods and the retirement of the sea from the bay, Luni had to be completely abandoned about 1300 A.D.