 A port city, Livorno had long served as a refuge for those persecuted for their religion, and was home to a large Jewish community.His maternal great-great-grandfather, Solomon Garsin, had immigrated to Livorno in the 18th century as a refugee.Modigliani's mother, Eugénie Garsin, born and raised in Marseille, was descended from an intellectual, scholarly family of Sephardic ancestry that for generations had lived along the Mediterranean coastline.