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Generally reckoned to have one of the highest standards of living in Italy, PARMA , about thirty kilometres along the Via Emilia northwest of Reggio, is about as comfortable a town as you could wish for. The measured pace of its streets, the abundance of its restaurants and the general air of provincial affluence are almost cloying, especially if you've arrived from the south. Not surprisingly, if you're travelling on a tight budget, Parma presents a few difficulties - the cheap hotels are usually full, and, although the restaurants are excellent, food too can cost a bomb. That said, it's a friendly enough place, with plenty to see. A visit to the opera can be an experience: the audience are considered one of the toughest outside La Scala and don't pull any punches if they consider a singer to be performing badly. And the city's works of art include the legacy of two great artists - Correggio and Parmigianino.
The Town
Parma's main street, Via Mazzini , and its continuation, Strada della Repubblica , run east from the river, past Piazza Garibaldi - which, together with the narrow streets and alleyways that wind to the south and west, forms the fulcrum of Parma. The mustard-coloured Palazzo del Governatore forms the backdrop of the square, behind which the Renaissance church of the Santa Maria della Steccata (daily 9am-noon & 3-6pm) was apparently built using Bramante's original plan for St Peter's as a model. Inside there are frescoes by a number of sixteenth-century painters, notably Parmigianino, who spent the last ten years of his life on this work, eventually being sacked for breach of contract by the disgruntled church authorities. A year later he was dead, aged 37, "an almost savage or wild man" who had become obsessed with alchemy, according to Vasari.
Five minutes' walk away - turn right off Strada Cavour - the slightly gloomy Piazza Duomo forms part of the old centro episcopale , away from the shopping streets of the commercial centre. The beautiful Lombard-Romanesque Duomo (daily 9am-12.30pm & 3-7pm), dating from the eleventh century, holds earlier work by Parmigianino in its south transept, painted when the artist was a pupil of Correggio - who painted the fresco of the Assumption in the central cupola. Finished in 1534, this is among the most famous of Correggio's works, the Virgin Mary floating up through a sea of limbs, faces and swirling drapery, which attracted some bemused comments at the time. One contemporary compared it to a "hash of frogs' legs", while Dickens, visiting much later, thought it a sight that "no operative surgeon gone mad, could imagine in his wildest delirium". Correggio was paid for the painting with a sackful of small change to annoy him, since he was known to be a great miser. The story goes that he carried the sack of coins home in the heat, caught a fever and died at the age of 40. Before you leave, take a look at the relief of the Deposition on the west wall of the south transept, an impressive piece of work by the architect Benedetto Antelami that dates from 1178. Look too at the frieze that runs the length of the nave above the arches - also by Correggio.
There's a more significant work by Antelami outside the duomo, in the form of the beautiful octagonal Baptistry (daily 9am-12.30pm & 3-6pm; L3000/?1.55), its sugary pink Verona marble facing, four storeys high, encircled by a band of sculpture and topped off by some slim turrets. The three elaborately carved portals serve as a meeting place in the evening. Bridging the gap between the Romanesque and Gothic styles, this is considered Antelami's finest work; started in 1196, the architect sculpted the frieze that surrounds the building and was also responsible for the reliefs inside, including the polychrome figures above the door and a series of fourteen statues, representing the months and seasons, that have been painstakingly scrubbed down and restored. Take the spiral staircase to the top for a closer view of the thirteenth-century frescoes on the rib-vaulted ceiling. There's more work by Correggio in the cupola of the church of San Giovanni Evangelista behind the duomo (daily 6.30am-noon & 3.30-8pm) - a fresco of the Vision of St John at Patmos. Next door, the Spezieria Storica di San Giovanni Evangelista , at Borgo Pipa 1 (daily 9am-1.45pm; L4000/?2.07), is a thirteenth-century pharmacy that preserves its medieval interior.
A short walk northwest from here, the Camera di San Paolo in the former Benedictine Convent on Via Melloni (daily 9am-1.45pm; L4,000/?2.07), houses more frescoes by Correggio done in 1519; above the fireplace, the abbess who commissioned the work is portrayed by Correggio as the Goddess Diana. Around the corner on Piazza della Pace, the Museo Glauco-Lombardi at Via Garibaldi 15 (tel 0521.233727; Tues-Sat 10am-3pm, Sun 9am-1pm; L8000/?4.13), recalls later times, with a display of memorabilia relating to Marie-Louise of Austria, who reigned here after the defeat of her husband Napoleon at Waterloo. She set herself up with another suitor (much to the chagrin of her exiled spouse) and expanding the Parma violet perfume industry.
Just across from here, it's hard to miss Parma's biggest monument, the Palazzo della Pilotta , surrounded by vast expanses of wonderfully green lawn set off by modern fountains. Begun for Alessandro Farnese - the wiley Pope Paul III - in the sixteenth century, this building was reduced to a shell by World War II bombing, though it's been rebuilt and now houses a number of Parma's museums.
Inside is Parma's main art gallery, the Galleria Nazionale (daily 9am-1.45pm; L12,000/?6.20, including the Teatro Farnese), a modern, hi-tech display that includes more work by Correggio and Parmigianino, and the remarkable Apostles at the Sepulchre and Funeral of the Virgin by Carracci - massive overwhelming canvases, suspended either side of a gantry at the top of the building. The Teatro Farnese (Mon 8.30am-2pm, Tues-Sun 8.30am-7.30pm; L4000/?2.07, or L12,000/?6.20 including the Galleria Nazionale), which you pass through to get to the gallery, in the former arms room of the palace, was almost entirely destroyed by the bombing in 1944. The restored theatre, still used occasionally, with an extended semicircle of seats three-tiers high, made completely of wood, in a facsimile of Palladio's Teatro Olympico at Vicenza, houses Italy's first revolving stage. On the lower floor, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale (Tues-Sun 9am-6.30pm; L4000/?2.07) is a less essential stop but is still worth a glance, with finds from the Etrusco-Roman city of Velleia and the prehistoric lake villages around Parma, as well as the table top on which the Emperor Trajan notched up a record of his gifts to the poor.
Across the river from the Palazzo della Pilotta, the Parco Ducale is a set of formal gardens laid out in the eighteenth century around the sixteenth-century Palazzo Ducale (Mon-Sat 8am-noon; free) built for Ottaviano Farnese. Just south, the Casa di Toscanini on Via R. Tanzi (Tues-Sat 10am-1pm & 3-6pm, Sun 10am-1pm; L3000/?1.55) is the birthplace of the composer who debuted in the Teatro Regio here , and just one of the sights that recall Parma's strong musical heritage. Further south still, on the same side of the river, the embalmed body of the violinist Niccolo Paganini rests under a canopy in the Cimitero della Villetta (daily: summer 8am-12.30pm & 4-7pm; winter 8am-12.30pm & 2.30-5pm). |
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