ADVERTISING INFORMATION

Parma - History

On the ruins of a bronze-age village and on a supposed Celtic settlement (3rd century B.C.), in 183 B.C. the Romans founded the city of Parma in order to strengthen their rule in the Cispadane region (The Regione immediately south of the Po river), which was continually threatened by the Ligurians.

From the historian Titus Livius we know that the colonies of Modena and Parma were founded on the Via Emilia by bringing two thousand Roman family heads led by the triumvirates M. Emilius Lepidus, T. Ebutius Carus, and L. Quintus Crispinus. According to Livius there were very few traces both of a Gallic civilization and of a supposed earlier Etruscan occupation. Probably the name of the river which divides Parma into two parts from north to south and from which the Romans derived the name of this colony, may confirm the assumption of an Etruscan cultural penetration into the territory surrounding Parma. The Romans reclaimed the plain surrounded by three rivers (Enza, Po, Taro), which was once covered by forests and bogs with few cultivated areas. The first plan of the city complies with the traditional system of orthogonal axes. The main road of the "centuriatio" of Parma coincides with the Via Emilia, of which there is evidence in the stone bridge, built on the river Parma, probably during the Augustan reconstruction of the Via Emilia, and the "cardum" has become the present Via Cavour and Via Farini. Since the imperial age, the Roman town had a forum (in the present Piazza Garibaldi), a theatre (Piazzale S. Uldarico), an amphitheatre, thermal buildings, a temple, a basilica, and water supply. During the nineteenth century and in recent archaeological excavations, remains of rich and modest houses were brought to light, which is evidenced by numerous floors including mosaics.

In the middle years of the Empire there was a period of crisis in the local economy of sheep breeding which, according to the sources, gave rise to a series of handcrafts. The town became depopulated and it was only during the life-time of King Theodoric (454-526) that there emerged a few signs of recovery.

Later the town came under Byzantine rule (553-568) and was called Crisopoli but we do not know whether this name derived from the richness of its soil or from the fact that the town was a financial centre for the military. After the Longobard invasion (568-569), which deeply changed the territorial arrangement in Emilia, Parma became an important garrison, of which significant archaeological remains have been found. Parma lost and regained its identity many times.

It became the chief centre of the Frankish rule when the main features of the original urban plan began to disappear. Since Charlemagne had neither abolished nor unified the ancient laws, completely different traditions and cultures survived for centuries until they found their unification at the time of the free cities.

The town then came under the rule of Bishop Guidobono, who, at the same time, was also the feudal lord of the town from 860 to 895. In 877 he founded the chapter house of the Cathedral, the Bishop's Palace with a seminary (attended by Saint Peter Damian). This school was opened to the public in the 11th century, the subjects taught were grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, music, arithmetic,  geometry, astronomy, and later law and medicine. The origins of the University of Parma, one of the oldest in Italy, are to be found in this famous school. During the struggles between the Empire and the Church,Parma sided with the Empire and appointed two antipopes: its own bishop Cadalus and Gilberto. Antipope Cadalus, bishop and feudal lord from 1045 to 1072 began the construction of the Cathedral and of the Bishop's Palace outside the northern wall of the city, on the ruins of an early Christian basilica. Little by little the bishop's political power declined, whereas the minor landowners grew stronger and stronger showing a spirit of independence from the Church and from the Empire.

When Frederick II was defeated in 1248, Parma established its first republican government with its seat in the Piazza nuova (now Piazza Garibaldi) where Torello da Strada, first Podesta' of Parma in 1221, ordered the construction of the Palazzo Comunale (the Town Hall). All this caused dissensions backed by the local noble families. After numerous struggles for supremacy and power, in 1335, after the fall of the Free City Government, Parma passed under the rule of Luchino Visconti and then of Filippo Maria Visconti (1420). After a short period of independence the city passed under the control of the Sforza Family, followed by that of the French and then of the Church.

From 1521, Francesco Guicciardini ruled Parma in the name of Pope Leo X. He curbed internal quarrels, and neither surrendered to the French nor to the Venetians, who, in December of that year, besieged the city. In 1545, after the restoration of papal rule, Pope Paul III, of the Farnese Family, made Parma the capital of a small duchy (made up of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla) that was ruled by this family until 1731. Power was held first by Pier Luigi (who was murdered in Piacenza in 1547 by a conspiracy of the nobles. The attitude of conspiracy of the nobles towards the Farnese Family was not to subside until May 5th, 1612, when Ranuccio I had many local feudal lords beheaded: among them was Barbara Sanseverino. Power was then held by Ottavio who made Parma the capital of the duchy, where he built the Palazzo del Giardino. He also reorganized the state with better laws, and with the help of famous artists and cultured men, he improved the development of the city. In 1586 Alessandro became duke; he grew up in Spain in Philipp II's court and lived for a long time in Flanders, and was involved in the wars between the Catholics and Protestants. In the meanwhile the rule of the city was held by his son, Ranuccio I, who carried out the construction of the Palazzo della Pilotta and the Teatro Farnese. Later power was held successively by Odoardo, Ranuccio II, Francesco and Antonio, the last duke of the Farnese Family. When Antonio died, the rule of the city passed to Carlo Bourbon, who, after a short time, abdicated power because at first he was given the throne of Napoli, and then that of Spain. Therefore all the furniture and artistic objects of value were moved from their palaces in Parma, Colorno, and Sala Baganza to the Palazzo di Capodimonte in Napoli.

With the Treaty of Aachen, the duchy of Parma was given to Don Filippo Bourbon, who was the second son of Elisabetta Farnese and Philip V of Spain. He married Louise Elisabeth Louis XV's daughter, a woman accustomed to the pleasures of Versailles. They inherited a duchy in economic decay with bare and neglected palaces, but they chose intelligent and skilled ministers, artists and architects with enlightened ideas and so Parma began to thrive again with the newest ideas of European culture. The
duchess had carpets, furniture, pictures pieces of porcelain, and tapestries sent from Paris in order to decorate her court according to French taste.

Don Filippo founded the Palatine Library which was greatly developed by Paolo Maria Paciaudi, who, in a few years, acquired 40,000 volumes. He also founded the Accademia di Belle Arti (Fine Arts Academy), which every year organized international sculpture, architecture, and painting competitions, attended by young artists from all over Europe (young Goya was one of them). The duke also promoted archaeological
excavations which led to the discovery of the Roman ruins of Velleja, on the lower slopes of the Apennines in the present Province of Piacenza. The look of the city changed: its typical Farnese features were enriched with neo-classical buildings planned by the architect E.A. Petitot and by stucco-works designed by French artists from his school (one of whom was G.B. Boudard). In these years Giambattista Bodoni set up a great printing house, and the fame of his production became known the world over. The light of this culture did not fade completely away when the rule passed to Don Ferdinando and Maria Amalia, who was the daughter of Maria Teresa of Austria however, the leading figures of the city resigned their posts.

Restoration began with the usual lack of foresight and political ability. After Ferdinando's death, Parma was ruled by Moreau de Saint Mery, who had been appointed by Napoleon. He attempted to re-organize the finances and the city administration, which in 1814, passed to Marie Louise of Austria, Napoleon's second wife, whose reign lasted till 1847. These were thirty important years in the life of the duchy which became and international meeting place for new ideas.

The new idea of independence, developing and spreading all over Italy developed and spread also in Parma. The last duke Carlo III Bourbon, was stabbed (1851) in the city centre during his daily walk. He left to his wife, Louise Marie of Berry, the task of ruling his stormy state troubled by struggles for independence.

Finally in March 1860 a plebiscite decided that Parma should be annexed to Piemonte. When in August 1922 Italo Balbo and his fascist squads left from Romagna to take over  the political power in Italy, only one city in the region rose against him and organized a heroic resistance: it was Parma, which even today remembers those events as the days of "Barricades of Oltretorrente", which are among the noblest facts in its eventful history.

Back to Europe

© Copyright 2000 - 2004  Eurotravelling.net  POWERED BY wORLDTRAVELGATE.NET