The following is a selection of quotes about Livorno from various people - from Charles Dickens to Australian travel writer Peter Moore - through the ages up until recent times. I have chosen them because in some way or another they ring true to me,  even if they were written perhaps decades or even centuries ago. They all capture a certain aspect of Livorno, together summing up the essence of this Medici city by the sea. They are in chronological order, starting with the most recent:

Peter Moore, Australian travel writer and traveller (writing specifically about Bar Civili, the historic Ponce bar).

“Bar Civili is a microcosm of Livorno – pragmatic, open-minded and buzzing with brio.”
From an article in The Times, 10 June 2007. http://www.petermoore.net/

Pier Paolo Pasolini, for the magazine Successo in 1959

“After Rome and Ferrara, Livorno is the city in Italy where I would most like to live. Every time I go there I leave my heart on its huge seafront busy with young people and sailors, free and happy”
“Along the wide seafront there is always an air of festivity, as in the south: but it is a festivity full of respect for the festivities of others.”

Anonymous writer at the beginning of the 20th century.

“Leghorn is an instance—the only instance perhaps—of a large Italian city wholly untouched by the influence and imported requirements of the tourist: that is its pre-eminent charm...”
“...there is much in Leghorn to make the traveller cease from travelling and take his rest for ever in this city by the Tyrrhenian Sea.”

“...let the traveller cease awhile from travelling and take his rest by the Liburnian shore, let him dip in the tonic waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea, and walk by its shores in the cool spring days and warm winter afternoons, drinking in the health-giving breezes and feasting on the glories of the Gorgonian Archipelago, let him mingle freely with the cheery, courteous, contented Livornesi, who dearly love to bid a stranger welcome...”

For the complete article click here

Charles Dickens during his journey to Italy after which he wrote the book “Pictures of Italy” published in 1846

“...Leghorn (made illustrious by SMOLLETT'S grave), which is a
thriving, business-like, matter-of-fact place, where idleness is
shouldered out of the way by commerce. The regulations observed
there, in reference to trade and merchants, are very liberal and
free; and the town, of course, benefits by them.”
“... the railroad between Leghorn and Pisa, which is a good one,
and has already begun to astonish Italy with a precedent of
punctuality, order, plain dealing, and improvement--the most
dangerous and heretical astonisher of all. There must have been a
slight sensation, as of earthquake, surely, in the Vatican, when
the first Italian railroad was thrown open.”

www.dickens-literature.com