Just off the town of Livorno, in Tuscany, there is a rocky shoal known as Meloria. Now part of a marine protected area, in ancient times this skerry constituted a dangerous hazard for ships navigating the area. For this reason, in 1157, the Pisans built a lighthouse on one of the rocks that breached the surface, to signal the presence of the shoal. Meloria was the site of a large battle in 1284 between the armies of Pisa and Genoa, and later, in 1286, the Genoese destroyed the lighthouse. It…
