Duchy of Parma

A duchy created by a pope for his son, which ended up giving Europe cheese, ham and a Habsburg empress. Paul III carved Parma and Piacenza out of papal territory in 1545 and granted them to Pier Luigi Farnese, his illegitimate son, an act of nepotism blatant even by sixteenth-century standards - and Pier Luigi was assassinated two years later. The Farnese nonetheless held the duchy for nearly two centuries, building Parma into a small court capital with a famous theatre. The line failed in 1731 and the duchy passed to the Spanish Bourbons, then in 1814 to Marie Louise of Austria - Napoleon's second wife, given Parma as consolation after his fall, where she governed for thirty-one years and is still remembered warmly for bridges, schools and hospitals rather than for her marriage. The duchy joined Sardinia in 1860. Parmigiano Reggiano has been made in the same region by roughly the same method since the middle ages, and prosciutto di Parma alongside it, both now protected designations. Correggio and Parmigianino painted here. Verdi and Toscanini were born nearby. The duchy covered Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla. Parma has around 200 thousand people today. The Teatro Farnese was among the earliest permanent theatres with movable scenery. The city hosted the European Food Safety Authority from 2005. Stendhal set a novel there without ever visiting. Parma was created for a papal son in 1545, passed to the Spanish Bourbons in 1731, and was given to Napoleon's widow in 1814. Its dukes voted to join Piedmont by plebiscite in 1860 along with the rest of the central Italian states.

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