Over an area of 290 sq. km., it has a population of 165,000 inhabitants, of whom 162,000 are Catholic. It comprises 39 parishes, served by 55 diocesan priests and 67 regular clergy, one seminary, 14 male religious communities and 45 female ones (Annuario Pontificio, 1951, p. 251).
An oratory dedicated to St. Mary already existed before the 12th century, since it is mentioned in a parchment dated 30 March 1160; likewise, it is known that in 1267 it also took the title of another church, St. Julia, which had been destroyed, and from then on was called the parish church of St. Mary and Julia. This church must have been built when Desiderius, King of the Lombards, while transferring the body of St. Julia, virgin and martyr, from Gorgona to Brescia, made a stop at Livorno. It was indeed on that occasion (776) that St. Julia was chosen as protector and patron saint. After the church was demolished in 1534 to isolate the fortress, the church of St. Anthony was elevated to the status of parish church of Labrone or Livorna or Liburna (the first confused names of present-day Livorno), and it also assumed the title of St. Mary and Julia in memory.
The village and later castle formed part of the Porto Pisano, its fortifications and vassal territories, undergoing the fluctuating fortunes of that Republic; yet ecclesiastically it can be said to have always remained under the jurisdiction of the archdiocese of Pisa. Indeed, in 1103 it was donated by Countess Matilda to the works of the cathedral of Pisa, and a few years later it was sold, for precisely 1,000 lire, to the archbishop himself. Ferdinand I de’ Medici, who wished to make Livorno into a city (it was proclaimed as such on 19 March 1606), also completed the construction of the church of St. Francis in the Piazza d’Armi, larger than those already existing.
