Arturo Toscanini's Birthplace

Toscanini's humble birthplace where he spent his early childhood contains me­mentoes, photographs, and other ob­jects and souvenirs of the great con­ductor in small rooms with low ceilings.

Borsari 1870 Collection

This is an interesting museum dedicat­ed to perfumes. Tracing through the his­tory of the Borsari firm founded in 1870, which produced the famous "Violetta di Parma" perfume, the collection illustrates key aspects of the art, graphics, style and taste associated with this Italian perfume manufacturer.

Boschi di Carrega Regional Nature Park

The park, which extends across the hilly terraces between the rivers Taro and Baganza, is the region's first institution set up to protect a rare example of woods at the toot of hills, fall of trees like: common oaks, Adriatic oaks, chestnuts, beeches, pines and firs. The undergrowth is full of wild orchids and various types of mushrooms. The animal life includes roe deer, wild boars, wa­ter voles, woodpeckers, jays, turtledoves, robin redbreasts, sparrow hawks, amphibians and reptiles.

Cathedral of Parma

This is one of the most representative works of northern Italian Ro­manesque buildings and features a facade with a sloping roof dec­orated with three rows of loggias, three portals and an ornamen­tal portal with an arch decorated with bas-relief sculptures. The interior has Latin cross-shaped plan wife smaller aisles surmounted by a women's gallery and separated from fee nave by columns wife Romanesque capitals. Above the transept, where there is an inset relief depicting Antelami's Deposition, is a solemn dome frescoed in the 16^th century by Correggio.

Church of San Giovanni Evangelista

Founded in the 10th century, this was rebuilt by Bemardino Zaccagni in 1498-1510. The high facade and slender bell tower date from the 16"' century. The Latin cross-shaped interior wife a nave and two aisles lined with classical fluted columns made of gray stone are famous for its decorative paintings. A frieze painted by Correggio in 1522-23 runs along the nave. The twelve side chapels are decorated wife frescoes by Emilian artists, including Parmigianino. The spherical vault of the dome is covered wife the famous cycle of frescoes by Correggio depicting St. John's Transit.

Church of the Madonna della Steccata

This magnificent Renaissance church was commenced in 1521 at fee City Council's expense to contain what is considered to be a miraculous image of fee Virgin Mary. It looks like an elegant Bramanti-style building, wife a Greek cross-shaped plan divided into semi-circular apses and square cornel" chapels. Combinations of pilaster strips, alternating windows and mullion windows wife two lights and a cornice with oculi characterize fee overall struc­ture, topped by a marble dome wife a loggia and lantern. The in­terior has central plan wife apsed arms and four lozenge-shaped The most valuable work of art is fee highly elegant decorative cycle in fee large presbytery arch painted by Parmigianino (1530-1539).

Crinalealta Val Di Parma and Val Cedra Regional Nature Park

Known by the name of the Park of a Hundred Lakes, this stretch­es across the highlands of the Parma Apennines. The land is cov­ered with woods and delightful little lakes. At lower levels, there are broadleaf trees, mainly the Adriatic oak and black hornbeam. There are also chestnuts, accompanied by beech trees at heights of between 1,000-1,700 meters. Native woodlands of firs and yews, evidence of the old forest landscape, were incorporated in "Life Nature '95", a European Union project extended to cover the entire Emilian Apennines. The park is M of fauna such as wolves, otters, roe deer, deer, wild boar, dormice, foxes, weasels, stone martens, eagles, falcons, buzzards, and kestrels.

Farnese Theatre

One of the world's most impressive and imposing old theatres (1618-19). After the air raids in 1944 it was rebuilt in keep­ing with its original design.

Giuseppe Stuard Art Gallery

The Art Gallery, containing over 270 paintings from 14^th – 19^th centuries, is cer­tainly the city's most important private collection. Among all the various works on display, it is worth mentioning a group of primitive Tuscan panel paintings. There are also plenty of 17^th century works from Emilia.

Glauco Lombardi Museum

Displaying works of art, furniture, ar­chaeological finds, jewels, and memen­toes belonging to the Bourbons and Maria Luisa. There are also many por­traits and scenes in water-colors, some actually painted by her majesty in per­son; then there are etchings by Benigno Bossi based on drawings by Ennemond Petitot and Paolo Toschi and a collection of 18^th century paintings from Parma and France.

Monte Prinzera Nature Reserve

Situated between the clay hills of the central Taro Valley, the reserve encompasses Mount Prinzera and is particularly impor­tant for its great biological variety. Near the ophiolitic outcrops of Prinzera, where there are plenty of terns and other local species (minuartia, alyssum, toadflax), there are also woodlands con­sisting mainly of black hornbeams, chestnuts, pubescent oaks, Turkey oaks and shrubs such as hazels, cornelian cherries, and. laburnums. The reserve is also the home to hares, hedgehogs, badgers and foxes, as well as squirrels, roe deer, and wild boar. The rock thrush also nests here and buzzards and kestrels can be seen on the rocky slopes.

Monte Prinzera Nature Reserve

Situated between the clay hills of the central Taro Valley, the reserve encompasses Mount Prinzera and is particularly impor­tant for its great biological variety. Near the ophiolitic outcrops of Prinzera, where there are plenty of terns and other local species (minuartia, alyssum, toadflax), there are also woodlands con­sisting mainly of black hornbeams, chestnuts, pubescent oaks, Turkey oaks and shrubs such as hazels, cornelian cherries, and laburnums. The reserve is also the home to hares, hedgehogs, badgers and foxes, as well as squirrels, roe deer, and wild boar. The rock thrush also nests here and buzzards and kestrels can be seen on the rocky slopes.

National Gallery

This is one of the most important art gal­leries in Italy due to the number and ex­tremely high quality of works on display many bearing the signature of widely ac­claimed masters. The collections include paintings from the 13^th-19^th centuries at­tributed to the main Italian schools and movements, but there is also no lack of Flemish, Dutch, Spanish and French paintings, while the bulk of the works are from schools in Parma and Emilia of the 15^th-18^th centuries.

Parco Ducale - Palazzo Ducale

The extensive landscaping (about 20 hectares) is one of the few remaining examples of a princely park. Commis­sioned by Duke Ottavio in 1561, it was converted (1559-1564) into an Italian garden by Vignola, based on a geometric octagonal grid layout with an axis leading to the palace. A straight path cut into the landscape leads to the large com­plex of the duke's residences, preceded by four 18^th century statues of gods by Jean-Baptiste Boudard. The palace, which was extended and converted to 18th century by Ennemond Petitot with the addition of four comer pavilions, still has its original 16^th century design by Vignola in the cen­tral section and includes rooms to mannerist-style and with 18^th century stucco decorations.

Parma Morta Nature Reserve

The reserve contains a stretch of the old course of the Parma stream, where it used to flow into the River Enza before join­ing the Po. The abandoned river branch, almost 5 km, forms a particularly important wetland area for local flora and fauna; its stagnant waters are home to amphibians, reptiles and birds. Typical wetland vegetation grows along the riverbanks sur­rounded by a thick band of canebrakes, together with alder buck­thorn shrubs and small areas of woodlands containing English oaks, elms and common maples.

Piazza della Pace - Palazzo Pilotta

Palazzo Pilotta stands in the wide landscaped space on the west side. It is named after the Basque game "pelota", which used to be played in one of the courtyards. Commissioned by Ranuccio I in the latter 16^th century, it holds the Nation­al Gallery, Museum of Antiquity, Palatina Library and Bodoniano Museum. Marino Mazzacurati's monument to (he Partisan Soldier stands to the left of the building; the mon­ument to Giuseppe Verdi, a huge bronze relief by Ettore Ximenes, stands alone on the right.

Regio Theatre

Built in 1821 -29, this is a neo-classical building with porticoes on ten Ionic columns and considered one of the most important and famous shrines of Italian music.

Sant' Dario's Oratory

The oratory was built in 1663 and is divided into three small aisles separated by fluted plastered stucco columns. The decorative columns show lunettes decorated wife fruits, flowery patterns and figures of Saints and Blessed local citizens and are all fee work of Giovanni Maria Conti Della Camera.

Stirone Regional River Park

Situated between the provinces of Parma and Piacenza, the park's extensive waterscape features typical vegetation (water hemp, willows, poplars) and oak woods with such rare species as dog's-tooth violets and dittanies, some species of orchids and the so-called Carthusian carnation. The environment provides shelter for the bee-eater, kingfisher, various species of amphibians, the grass snake or viper snake, as well as hares, hedgehogs, badgers, foxes and stone-martens.

The Baptistery

Made of Verona marble; this is one of the most extraordinary examples of the transition from the Romanesque to the Goth­ic. Benedetto Antelami directed the works, which began in 1196, and was responsible for almost all the wonderful s-sculptural decoration. The extensive interiors abound with el­egant soaring lines with twice as many sides as the octago­nal outside perimeter. There is a twin baptismal font in the center. Antelami's high-relief sculptures of the months, sea­sons and signs of the Zodiac in the hollows in the first log­gia are extremely well known.

The Chamber of San Paolo

 

This was originally part of the apartment belonging to the abbesses of the monastery of the Benedettine di San Pao­lo, and was modernized and decorated starting to 1514. Correggio was responsible for the magnificent pictorial deco­ration in 1519, now acknowledged as one of the great masterpieces of the late-Italian Renaissance.