Parma is one of those places where art, music, literature, history, traditions and good life are strictly linked together.
It is particularly suggestive the heritage that greatest people of the past left to the city, confirming its innate cultural qualities. The beauty of Marie Louise. The genius of Toscanini. The harmony of Correggio. The talent of Verdi.
The city features fascinating places and corners that dig out fragments of history and culture. A city where past and present come together on the same road. It is really worth to get lost along its narrow streets to discover that secret side of the city made of legends and traditions.
Founded in 183 A.D. by the Romans, Parma immediately became an important reference point for all of the surrounding plains: the construction of Via Emilia (187 A.D.) promoted a profound and rapid development of agriculture and of ovine breeding in all of the territories.
In 569 the city was conquered by the Longobardi family and became home of a Duchy.
From the IX century, cloistered centers, predominantly Benedictine, encouraged a reclamation of the territory, and allowed for the recolonization and the restoration of agricultural land. The bishops progressively assumed temporal power and Parma provided two antipopes - Honorius II and Clement III - to the conflict between religious and political power on the ordinations.
The constitution of the Municipality, around the year 1140, signaled the beginning of the rebirth of the city after a period of Medieval turmoil.
