Governor's Palace

The Governor's Palace is a large and prestigious place of modern and contemporary art. The large spaces restored to host international level exhibitions offer the visitor an interesting and complex itinerary.

In January 2010, after careful restoration, the Palace was reopened to the public, becoming the main exhibition venue in the city of Parma.

The first buildings of the Governor's Palace were built in 1283: the building was initially divided into two parts separated by the Vicolo di San Marco, today covered by the central vault.

The complex was the seat of the city's Captain and, later, of the Governor, the Civil Auditor and other municipal magistrates.

The Palace, which over time also hosted the papal legates sent with government functions, maintained its ancient architectural configuration until the Farnesian era, when, after 1606, following the collapse of the bell tower and the rebuilding of the Municipal Palace , was the subject of a first important renovation which led to the formation of the vault above Vicolo San Marco and the construction, on top of it, of a civic tower which, built only in 1673 by the Piacenza engineer GB Barattieri, had to assume the function of ancient bell tower of the Town Hall. It therefore housed the ancient bell of 1453, called "di Terza", which bore the names of the Elders of the year of the merger, then the one called "di Alessi", from the name of its author, replaced in turn, in 1998, with a repeat.

Like many buildings overlooking Piazza Grande, this one too had to undergo modifications and renovations over the centuries. On the façade, the sixteenth-century image of the crowned Virgin, painted by J. Zanguidi known as Bertoja (1544-1574), was replaced by the sculpture dedicated by the Council of Elders with the same subject, the work of the sculptor JB Boudard. In the meantime, the façade had been rectified and unified in a contained "French" style by EA Petitot, through a series of decorative elements such as the string course cornice and the ornamentation of the windows. In 1829, commissioned by Duchess Maria Luigia, the large sundials of the facade were created by L. Ferrari and L. Pazzoni, while in the area in front of the Palace, the Bourbon monument of the Ara Amicitiae (1769), the work of Petitot , the one dedicated to G. Garibaldi, the work of D. Calandra, was replaced in 1893. The Governor's Palace has maintained its character as a public building over time (until a few years ago it also housed some municipal offices), and features the image of Parma brick on the façade, on the corner with current Via Cavour. , the unit of measurement to which bricklayers and builders had to refer in the Middle Ages.