Parma

Piazza del Duomo

Square · 44.80350, 10.33042

the medieval square holds three things together, the Cathedral, the Baptistery and the Museo Diocesano. The Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta is Lombard Romanesque, consecrated in 1106, with a gabled facade of superimposed loggias and a Gothic bell tower 63 metres high. In the dome is Correggio's Assumption of the Virgin, 1526-1530, one of the peaks of Italian Renaissance painting; in the side aisles the Deposition of Christ carved by Benedetto Antelami in 1178. The Baptistery of San Giovanni Battista, built between 1196 and 1270 by the same Antelami, is octagonal, faced in pink Verona marble, and marks the passage from Romanesque to Gothic: outside runs the zooforo, 75 panels of real and fantastic animals, inside the 16 arches are frescoed with biblical scenes in the Byzantine manner and the dome tells of the Heavenly Jerusalem, with Antelami's cycle of the Months and the Seasons. The Museo Diocesano gathers works from the Cathedral and the Baptistery and Roman mosaics of the fifth century found in the excavations.

Complesso Monumentale della Pilotta

Museum · 44.80496, 10.32604

a sixteenth century complex built between 1583 and 1600 as an annex to the Farnese Ducal Palace; the name comes from the game of pelota that Spanish soldiers played in its courtyards. Badly damaged by the bombing of 1944 and rebuilt after the war, it holds five museums in a single building. The Teatro Farnese, of 1618, designed by Giovan Battista Aleotti, is all wood and stucco worked to imitate marble and metal: the first modern permanent theatre in the West, with movable scenery and an auditorium for 3000 spectators that could be flooded for naval battles, and the Farnese used it only nine times. The Galleria Nazionale has works by Leonardo da Vinci, the Head of a Young Woman known as La Scapiliata, and then Correggio, Parmigianino, Canaletto, Fra Angelico, El Greco, Tiepolo. The Museo Archeologico Nazionale, founded in 1760 by Philip of Bourbon, runs from prehistory to the Roman age with an Egyptian collection and the finds from the Roman city of Veleia. Then there are the Biblioteca Palatina of 1762, with the neoclassical Galleria Petitot, and the Museo Bodoni, given over to the Parma printer Giambattista Bodoni.

Teatro Regio

Monument · 44.80314, 10.32734

built between 1821 and 1829 at the wish of Marie Louise of Austria, Duchess of Parma, to a design by Nicola Bettoli. A sober neoclassical facade, and inside a horseshoe hall with four tiers of boxes and a Parisian chandelier weighing a ton. This is Giuseppe Verdi's house, and the Regio audience has a name for being among the most demanding in the world. It can be seen only on the scheduled guided tours or during performances, with dates and details on the site. Otherwise there remain the facade and the square in front of it, with the monument to Verdi.

Teatroregioparma.it

Basilica di Santa Maria della Steccata

Church · 44.80250, 10.32732

built between 1521 and 1539 to a design by Bernardino and Giovanni Francesco Zaccagni. The name comes from the medieval fence that protected a miraculous image of the Madonna. A Greek cross plan, with a central dome frescoed by Bernardino Gatti with the Assumption of Mary. The great thing here are the frescoes by Parmigianino, Correggio's pupil, in the arches of the triumphal arch: the Wise and Foolish Virgins, where grace is already beginning to turn into Mannerism. In the crypt lie the tombs of the Farnese dukes, who made it their mausoleum.

Parco Ducale

Park · free entry · 44.80627, 10.31940

twenty hectares commissioned by Duke Ottavio Farnese in 1560 and laid out as an Italian garden, today the public park of the city. Tree lined avenues, monumental fountains, statues and pools; at the centre the Palazzo del Giardino, also called Palazzetto Eucherio Sanvitale, which hosts temporary exhibitions. Among the trees the Tempietto d'Arcadia, a neoclassical pavilion, and at the far end of the park the municipal greenhouses in Liberty style with exotic botanical species. Open from dawn to dusk: the right pause between one museum and the next.