Parma suffered first-hand the fall of its artistic glory, becoming the second most looted city of works of art after Florence, during the plundering of the Napoleonic era. But it is also the city of music, the birthplace of the great conductor Arturo Toscanini and the city where Nicolò Paganini died and is buried.
The Audiogiro staff has visited it for you and is ready to tell you about 5 of its most iconic attractions!
Initially built around 1580, under the rule of the Farnese family, the monumental complex of the Pilotta takes its name from the ancient game played by Spanish soldiers in the Guazzatoio courtyard, the 'pelota'. It was originally conceived as a set of buildings to support the Farnese court and the Ducal Palace. Inside the complex are the National Gallery, the Farnese Theatre, the Palatine Library, the Bodoni Museum and the National Archaeological Museum.
Parma, which has always been linked to the world of music, is the birthplace of one of the greatest conductors of all time: Arturo Toscanini. And it is precisely his birthplace, where he was born on 25 March 1867, that has now been transformed into a museum tracing the stages of Toscanini's life and career.
If the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption contains the first known work of the great sculptor Benedetto Antelami, namely the high relief with the Deposition from the Cross, which I invite you to visit, the Baptistery is certainly his most visible work. Built and decorated starting in 1196, its completion was rather lengthy, but it was probably finished almost a century later, around 1270.
The Church of San Francesco del Prato boasts a very special past. Built in Gothic forms in the 13th century, it soon became one of the most important churches in the city. What you can admire today, however, is not how the church looked for a long time...
A little outside Parma, there is a large ensemble of buildings that was an important Cistercian monastery for centuries and, according to some, inspired Stendhal in writing his novel ‘The Charterhouse of Parma’, although this information is almost certainly incorrect.
