The formation and the transformation of open spaces in general, and of the Parco Ducale in Parma in particular, are signs of the change of the function which our culture attributes to “nature in town” in history: the relationship between man and environment in history.

This old relationship was born with the formation itself of the urban settlements and it developed with different typologies, with varying functions from those strictly material and utilitarian to those more complex and refined.

From ancient times information and finds about the alimentary, textile and decorative function of  vegetable gardens, orchards and parks, present since the oldest settlements have come to light. Even the sacral function of parks and gardens inside towns is very ancient: the mythical hanging gardens of Nineveh and Babylonia (VIII - VII century b.C) are examples.

The aesthetic function is clearly evident in the ancient Egyptian and Greek temples and also in ancient Rome when gardens were characterized by the function of rest, and of social and cultural relationships: idleness.

The oldest evidences of parks and gardens in town and of the relationship man-urban environment in Parma are not obviously prior to the Roman age (the birth of the first urban establishment dates back to the II century b.C.) They concern two aspects: archaeological finds of that epoch and  typological traces left in the urban and extra-urban context still evident today.

In the Middle Age town parks and gardens have mostly utilitarian functions, such as the production of  materials and food in addition to those coming from the land,  or the provision of new spaces of enlargement of the town without losing the ancient experience of the Roman Hortus conclusus, which survives in the conventual cloisters with both the specialized productive and the symbolic-spiritual function which will be a reference point for the re-birth of the XV and XVI centuries.

The development of the town of Parma in the Middle Age shows the definition of those spaces which will allow the birth, in the following epoch, of the Parco Ducale. It’s the beginning of the process of the inclusion of wide green areas which assists strictly utilitarian functions such as vegetable gardens and orchards and of the settlement of convents with both a mystical-religious and utilitarian function of green spaces.

In the Renaissance the suburban noble residence acquires together with the more traditional functions of production and subsistence such as cultivation  and hunting, the new functions of the court which give form to the garden in the Italian style. These new functions, taken from the classical world, are synthesized  in the concept of “place of delights”.

In Parma the acquisition of the area beyond the torrent by Ottavio Farnese in 1561 marks the start of the project for the realization of the ducal residence and of the Garden: a wide landscaping worthy of an aristocratic sixteenth-century court. The structure of the giardino farnesiano is a typical garden all’italiana with the functions and the components of the garden in the XVI and XVII centuries: the care for apearances, the self celebration, the art, the culture, the astonishment, the performances and the parties but also the spaces for meditation or for the privacy of  the lords, the mystical green spaces and the green rooms.

The establishment of a garden more and more marked by extra-urban characteristics because of the need of spaces and dimensions conformed to the more and more magnificent and powerful capitals of the baroque Europe, leads, in  the XVII century,  to the birth  of the garden in the French style. The political functions of  representation  and of the monarch’s absolutism add to the traditional utilitarian and decorative functions of the landscape.

In the middle of the XVIII century, with Filippo di Borbone, the interest of the sovereigns in gardens comes alive again because of their renewed demands of the pomp of the court.

The court architect Ennemond-Alexandre Petitot (1767) remains true to the taste of the age with a new arrangement celebrating the Bourbon court.

Between the XIX and the XX century  a new concept of  the urban green space is spreading.  It is the answer to functional needs caused by changed political and economical situations and to the middle class, which is the emerging leading class. There is the necessity of transforming places of  recreation once reserved to the aristocracy into public areas, used for resting or taking a stroll. The furnishings and the facilities have to be conformed to celebrate the “modern age”; the attempt of the public administration of warranting the salubrity of the houses through the light and the air of the open spaces; the will of representing the values of the middle class through decorum and ornament; the interest of increasing the value of the new buildings by a sight of  green spaces; the need of spaces for shows, performances and celebrations of the new industrial society.

During the XIX century, under the government of the Archduchess of Austria, Maria Luigia, the old Ducal Garden begins to endure a series of interventions due partly to the necessity of maintenance and conservation and partly by the functional and utilitarian needs which will lead to a further transformation. This transformation reaches its height at the end of the XX century  after that a new restoration returns the place to a situation as close as possible to its Bourbon origins.

In that period two events of particular interest will definitively lead the garden to the new historical and urbanistic context of modern age: the cession of the Garden to the municipal administration of the town of Parma (15 September 1865), with the definitive opening of the Park to the public, and the demolition of the enceinte of the town (1907).

The XX century ends with the hard search of a problematic balance between the use of the garden and the conservation of the historical and biological richness which it holds.