Tag: italy

Postcard from Parma, Italy: Reclaiming the stage from ancient ghosts

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There is the Farnese Palace, too, and in it one of the dreariest spectacles of decay that ever was seen – a grand, old, gloomy theatre, mouldering away…. Such desolation as has fallen on this theatre, enhanced in the spectator’s fancy by its gay intention and design, now but worms can be familiar with. A hundred and ten years have passed, since any play was acted there…. If ever Ghosts act plays, they act them on this ghostly stage.

Pictures from Italy by Charles Dickens, 1846

Cosimo II de Medici (1590-1621) was going to be passing through town, and Ranuccio I Farnese (1569-1622), the duke of Parma and Piacenza, was eager to make a major impression. Ranuccio’s eagerness was enhanced by his desire to arrange a marriage between his son and one of Cosimo II’s daughters to fortify relations between the two families.

The huge Farnese Theatre was commissioned in 1618 in honor of the visit that actually failed to occur. But, never mind, the marriage did happen within a year or two anyway.

The massive theatre was made of wood with faux-marble plaster ornamentation. The theatre was used less than 10 times, only for lavish, expensive weddings and productions, including one during which the ground floor was flooded with water to make depiction of a naval battle more convincing. Following a grand finale in 1732, the stage indeed was abandoned for more than a century before the visit of Charles Dickens.

Allied bombing destroyed much of the Farnese Theatre in the spring of 1944. Even though it had not been in use for years, the decision was made in the 1950s to rebuild the theatre on the same grand scale as before.

Classical music resounds from concerts presented on the stage several times a month, much higher usage than the theatre ever experienced during its first three centuries.

Postcard from Parma, Italy: Baptistery takes on soaring height

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The soaring height of the Baptistery of Parma makes it a striking addition to the huge plaza fronting the Cathedral. The exterior of the Romanesque and Gothic structure is octagonal and is softly colored with bands of pink stone quarried from the area of Verona. A row of animals, some believable and some fanciful, add a whimsical touch to the structure’s surfaces.

The Baptistery was commissioned in 1196, with Benedetti Antelami generally receiving credit for both the architectural and much of the sculptural design. Restoration has revealed that his sculptures in the lunettes crowning the entrances were polychrome.

Inside, the hexagon is farther divided into 16 arches. Among the themes reflected by the rows of sculpture is the personification of the seasons of the year.

Antelami devoted more than two decades to working on the Baptistery, but it was not completed until after his death around the year 1230.

Postcard from Parma, Italy: A Cathedral packed with artistic distractions

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Completed in 1530, “The Assumption of the Virgin” rising high, higher up than this photo, up above in the cupola in the Cathedral in Parma attracts great attention. The Renaissance fresco is the work of Antonio da Correggio  (1489-1534), the pride of Parma, aside from meat and cheese. But there is so much distracting art in this cathedral, we ended up only with this image capturing a portion of two of the bottom corners of the star of the show.

The massive façade of the cathedral appears awkwardly dwarfed by a single tower, but this certainly was not the original plan. Atop an early Christian crypt, construction began in 1059. Following its consecration, the cathedral served the people of Parma only a decade before many of its walls came tumbling down in an earthquake in 1117.

The “new” façade, completed in 1178, presumably has thicker walls. The single Gothic belfry was added a century later. The planned twin tower never arrived.