Parma

Parma began as a Roman colony in 183 BC set on an old Celtic settlement (which in turn was based on former settlements dating back to the 17th-13th centuries BC). Its founders were the triumvirate of M. Emilio Lepido, T. Ebuzio Caro and L. Quinto Crispino. At the time, the city had around 2000 inhabitants and saw a period of rapid growth. The land was fertile which led to pig and sheep rearing, in turn giving rise to beautiful wool to the extent that the industries of spinning, weaving and dyeing boomed. The traces of Roman settlement are still clearly visible. Especially the Via Emilia which crosses the city taking various names in the centre from Via Gramsci to Via D’Azeglio, from Via Mazzini to Via Repubblica; all the other streets of the old town (or at least the oldest) run perpendicular or parallel to this one according to the ancient layout of Roman settlements. During this period the town had a theatre, an amphitheatre, a thermal spa, a basilica and of course a forum, where Piazza Garibaldi stands today, and which is still the very heart of Parma.

Darker times came with the Barbaric invasions (V and VI centuries). The Huns, the Erulis and then the Longobards (570) – in the intermediate period of 493 to 569 with Teodorico and the Byzantine government, the city, In those years it experienced raids and destruction which completely changed its appearance.

After the French reign, the bishops’ hegemony began until the period of the struggle for investitures, when Parma became the scene of many an animated event with internal wars. Despite its being a small city it gave rise to two antipapal figures: Onorio II (Cadalo, remembered as a great sinner in one of the cathedral’s chapels) and Clemente III (Giberto da Parma).

The Romanesque period gave Parma its artistic masterpieces such as the cathedral, the work of Wiligelmo and Lanfranco, the Vescovado, of which a trace of the original building remains (the city’s oldest wall in an alleyway of the Vescovado), the Benedetto Antelami baptistry, testimony of the passage from Romanesque to Gothic style.

Federico Barbarossa and his nephew Federico II di Svevia, saved Parma from total destruction and dreamed of the construction of a new city called Vittoria. Defeated by troops from the surrounding anti-imperial cities, they gave up their intentions in 1248. The other great period of fervour took place after various ups and downs due to ongoing wars and battles for supremacy between various important families during this period during those years and the Renaissance. Two figures stand out: Grapaldo and Taddeo Ugoleto who, together with other humanists, spread new ideas, inflaming the Italian states.