The territory of the provinces of Parma and Piacenza, which history has delivered to us enclosed within the ancient boundaries of the Dukedoms of the Farnese and the Bourbon families, can be defined as a "storeroom" of castles.
Culture, Art and Environment, united with a great wine and gastronomic tradition, make up the essence of this land located between the Apennines and the Po river, just an hour's drive from Milan. Castles, forts, fortresses and royal palaces all await the visitor along the roads which link the two provinces, on the spurs of mountains, nestling amongst the hills which slope down into the plains and in the lands close to the great river Po.
The Dukedom was born in 1545, with the rise to the papal seat Cardinal Alessandro Farnese under the name of Paolo III, who created a State for his natural son Pier Luigi. Since then and up until the Unification of Italy, for about 300 years, the rule of the Dukedom was passed between representatives of the dynasties of the Farnese and Bourbon families; this, until the Congress of Vienna when it was consigned to Mary Louise of Hapsburg-Lorraine, daughter of Franz I of Austria and wife of Napoleone Bonaparte.
Those visiting the Castles of the Dukedom will also be able to read into the history of the latter: that of the powerful families who lived in them, of the great artists who worked in them, of the loves, the betrayals and the conflicts which have made them famous.