The Tuscan town is the most suitable seat for hosting the museum dedicated to Basketball.
Completely surrounded by the green Lucca’s Plain, relatively close to the sea and not so far from mountains, Lucca is a magic town, imbued of the Tuscan and Italian artistic and historical atmosphere. Here, tradition and progress join, allowing the inhabitants a higher quality of life, combined with person-scaled services.
Lucca is one of the three towns in the World being enclosed in an untouched city walls, then it looks like as an ideal amphitheatre, inside which it is possible watch the exciting evolution of one of the most popular sports of the World.
Lucca boasts a deep-rooted and strong tradition for basketball, thanks to the dedicated and attentive policies carried out by sport societies and FIP (Italian Basketball Federation), which privileged above all younger generations. Basketball lovers and operators reckon this Tuscan municipality an unavoidable reference point, because its numerous initiatives concerning sport and in particular basketball and the creation of the Museum undoubtedly will strengthen the importance of Lucca in the basketball World.
In order to be what is presently, Lucca has lived a long and tense history, that interesting to be remembered even synthetically:

Short history of Lucca’s Municipality .

The originsLatin colony in 180 b.C. received a statute of Municipium that allowing a relative administrative autonomy. In the Byzantine period and during the reign of Goths, the Bishop assumed a remarkable power in the town.
The name Lucca should derive from the Celtic-Ligurian term "Luk ", marshland.

Upper Middle Age

During the Kingdom of Longobards, Lucca became capital of the most important Duchy of Tuscany, seat of a dux-iudex (leader-judge) who had jurisdiction over a larger territory and seated in a palace beside the present Square San Just.
Lucca kept this important political role also under the Empire of Carl the Great and the Kingdom of Italy. The Marquis Adalbert I extended his dominance over Florence and Fiesole, but seated in Lucca in a magnificent palace near the doors of the city where today the Large Square Verdi (it was anciently called as the grass of the Marquis – Remark: Verdi means Greens). At the end of X century, the town was the capital of the great Marquisate of Tuscany.

The Municipal Independence

As from XI century, the Marquisate slowly dissolved and, simultaneously, every town enjoyed an increasing independence. The Emperor Henry II allowed Lucca a jurisdiction extended to six miles from the walls and this territory was the basis of future Lucca’s state. The Marquis Guelfo resigned his rights over the town. The Municipal government was ruled by two consuls, then by a podestà. The deliberative assemblies were two: the Higher Council (called of Saint Michael in Forum) and Lower Council (called of Saint Peter Major). In the XIV century the decisional power was attributed to the Council of the Olders, chaired by a Gonfalonier.
After the dominion (signorìa) of Castruccio Castracani (1316-1329) the town lost its independence and several foreigner dominances ruled Lucca.

The Republic of Lucca

In 1369, Lucca gained again its independence and elaborated a new Republican statute. The executive power remained in the hands of Gonfalonier and Olders, in duty for two months, the deliberative power was attributed to one assembly only, the General Council, which conferred to the Council of Thirty-Six the discussion about particular subjects. This machinery was still in force until 1799, but with exception of the Luigi Guinigi’s thirty years of dominance (signorìa). However, during the centuries, some limitations regarding the access to public responsibilities were introduced. The Martiniana Bill (1556) and the introduction of Book of Noble Families (1629) transformed Lucca in a oligarchic-shaped Republic.

The Napoleon’s Era

During the events connected with Napoleon’s Campaign of Italy, two democratic governments alternated with two Restoration-inspired periods (1799-1805), then the Senate of Lucca’s Democratic Republic asked to French Emperor to appoint one of his relatives as King. Napoleon chose Elisa Bonaparte and Felice Baiocchi, who as Princes of Lucca and Piombino, governed from 1805 to 1814 with a constitutionalist statute. This statute implied the separation between government of the state and its administration, thus the modern Lucca’s Municipality had its birth, first ruled by a major then again by a Gonfalonier of governmental appointment and finally, with unified Kingdom of Italy, by a major elected by the citizens.

From the Restoration to the unity of Italy

The Congress of Vienna (1815) did not restore the ancient Republic but formed the Duchy of Lucca ruled by Maria Luisa and Carlo Lodovico of Bourbon who were without a throne. Carlo Ludovico in 1847 lost the Duchy to Lorena’s family, Lucca then joined Tuscany and then later the Kingdom of Italy.