Did you know that Livorno was founded by Hercules himself? It is obviously only a legend, but we have a bas-relief of the demigod on a building in “Piazza Cavour”.“Thence pursuing his Journey towards Italy, after having first founded Monaco, called Portus Herculis Modoeciae, he flew Ligur (from whom Liguria took its Name) who rashly ventured to oppose him; he then pass'd into Tuscany, in order to chastise Dercilius and Alerion, Sons of Neptune, who had stolen his Oxen and driven them thithier. This Voyage of Hercules remains in Remembrance by giving Name to two Ports, that of Hercules Labro, now Leghorn, and that of Porto Ercole, now belonging to the King of two Sicilies.”
The above quote is from page 24 of “A description of the first discoveries of the ancient city of Herculaneum...” by Niccolò Marcello Venuti (1700-1755), published in Venice in 1749 and reprinted in London in 1750 by Guglielmo Meyer.
See also:
“A description of the first discoveries of the ancient city of Herculaneum”
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