The antipope Cadalus began its construction in 1059, it was consecrated in 1106, partially damaged by earthquake in 1117 to be restored by 1130. It is one of the most renowned Romanesque cathedrals in Italy also for the numerous works of the art and painting cycles housed within. We shall just mention the beautiful DEPOSITION, one surviving slab of a marble ambo (1178) by BENEDETTO ANTELAMI, the greatest sculptor of the Middle Ages, and the DOME frescoed by CORREGGIO between 1526 and 1530 (coin operated lighting) showing the ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY: a furious wind drags angels, archangels, saints and the blessed into a wortex of light and clouds; airborne, legs and wings in a celestial apotheosis with the triumph of Our Lady of the Assumption who is just barely seen in a vertiginous foreshortened figure where the flight of the angels is thickest. Here, in the Cathedral, we see the conclusions of the evolution of the daring perspective and chiaroscuro that Correggio had already put into practice on the cornice of the dome of San Giovanni.

The Baptistry is the most homogeneous, complex and progressive monument to medieval art in Italy. In transition from the Romanesque to the Gothic (1196-1270), it is peopled by a thousand assorted figures, perfect in the rigourous architectonic-plastic unity in which one artist alone designed it, the great Benedetti Antelami. The outside is octagonal in plan with four orders of loggias that make the imposing structure appear lighter and are surmounted by a band of blind arches, cuspidal lanterns along the baluster on the top. The lunettes and friezes of the architraves of the portals greatly jutting out to north, south and west of the building illustrate stories from the Holy Scriptures. It is impossible in such a short space to try to sum up this incredibly rich mine of medieval sculpture. Inside apart from the other lunettes  over the portals and the rich cycles of frescoes on the vault, recently restored, among the greatest bodies of paintings of the thirteenth century, are the 14 stelae in high relief, again by Antelami and his school, that represent the twelve months and the allegories of winter and spring: one of the greatest examples of plastic realism in Italian art.

PALAZZO VESCOVILE

The construction was begun in the eleventh century by the antipope Cadalus (Onorius IX) when he was Bishop of Parma. It was extended and restored several times and then in 1232 Bishop Grazia had the façade completely rebuilt. From 1553 to 1568 the Bishop’s Palace was the first city residence of Duke Ottavio Farnese. From 1922 to 1930 under Bishop Guido Maria Conforti the façade was restored to its old thirteenth century appearance with the renovation of the large three-light windows, the ground floor columns and the loggias of the courtyard that were walled up in the eighteenth century. Between 1957 and 1959 under Bishop Evasio Colli the elegant inner courtyard was restored to its renaissance form.

PILOTTA

The architect Giovanni Boscoli of Montepulciano began the construction work in 1583 under Duke Ottavio Farnese. The huge building, conceived as the <service house> of the ducal palace, grew for decades until under Ranuccio I in 1611 it reached its present size, set around the three large courtyards: Guazzatoio, San Pietro Martire and Rocchetta. It was built to bear evidence to the annals of the Farnese family and this absurd, metaphysical construction is today the monumental and cultural centre of the city: the vastness of its rooms contains the FARNESE THEATRE, the NATIONAL GALLERY, the ARCHEOLOGICAL MUSEUM, the PALATINA LIBRARY and the BODONI MUSEUM. The name of the building derives from the game of <pelota> which was played in one of the courtyards. The south and west wings of the Pilotta were largely destroyed by an apocalyptic air raid on 13 May 1944 and faithfully rebuilt in the early post-war years.

PALAZZO DUCALE The central core of the Ducal Palace was built in 1564 by Giovanni Boscoli by order of Duke Ottavio Farnese and was extended in the second half of the eighteenth century by Petitot. The summer residence of the court, after the annexation of Parma to the Kingdom of Italy, was stripped of numerous furnishings and works or art. At present it is the headquarters of the Legion of the Carabinieri. Its large rooms conserve frescoes by Agostino Caracci, Tiarini, Cignani, Malosso, Baglioni and Bettoja.

CITTADELLA

Alessandro Farnese, governor of Flanders, had it built on behalf of Philip II and third duke of Parma (1586), based on the one at Aversa; it was a fortress, a state prison (Stendhal names it in his <Chartreuse>) and a barracks after the unification of Italy. In the shape of a pentagon, there is a beautiful entry portal designed by Simone Moschino in 1596; today it is a large public park.

The Regio theatre is one of the most architecturally beautiful and musically illustrious Italian theatres. It was built by the court architect Nicola Bettoli by order of the duchess Maria Luigia and was inaugurated, after 8 years of work, on 16 May 1829 with the opera ZAIRA written specially for the occasion by Vincenzo Bellini. The fine and severe facade, adorned by an elegant lonic colonnade, is in the neoclassical style. The ridotto in the imperial style is majestic and elegant, the stage is enormous while the hall had its ceiling painted by Gianbattista Borghesi who also painted the famous BACK-DROP depicting the allegory "The triumph of Knowledge".

PINACOTECA

This picture gallery belongs to the Charitable Confraternity of San Filippo Neri, it consists of two hundred paintings among which an interesting group of Tuscan works of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and another of seventeenth century Emilian painters.

(Photo: "Entrata di Cristo in Gerusalemme" Pietro di Giovanni d'Ambrogio.)