PASSIONS AND ITINERARIES
Names, Places and Myths
These are just some of my favorite itineraries. Follow me online to find out more!
“Antonio Lieto”
joyful, wonderful Correggio
Whole generations of artists have fallen in love with his genius and his refined sensuality that transport you to a vibrant, dynamic and colourful space, a hymn to joy of life.
Young people on educational “grand tours” flocked to Parma from all over Europe, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to admire his works. And what about you? Do you know the painter Antonio Allegri da Correggio (Allegri means “merry, joyful”, and he used to joke about his family name!) better known as “il Correggio”? Contact me and we’ll go and meet one of the greatest painters of all time, a worthy colleague of Leonardo and Raphael, Michelangelo and Titian. We will be able to trace back his steps in the beautiful town where he was born, Correggio, better understanding the environment in which he grew up and learning more about the culture he breathed.
We’ll get moved and excited in front of the extraordinary masterpieces he created in Parma: breathtaking frescoes, paintings of unbelievable beauty which made the city a “small-size Rome” of the sixteenth century. Word of your tourist guide (and art-passionate, of course): the good food of Parma and Emilia is unmissable and we will… explore it as it deserves, but the art of Correggio remains an absolute must!
Music, Maestro!
Verdi and Toscanini in Parma
and the “Bassa”
Although he was so much connected to the land of Piacenza and Milan, Giuseppe Verdi was born in Parma’s area, where the wildest generations of his fans grew up in the 20th century.
A fiery, firm and extremely musical personality, Arturo Toscanini is actually a son of the Oltretorrente, the ancient working-class district of Parma: the first truly modern conductor, he was a brilliant interpreter of Verdi’s operas.
Many things bind these two artists… and I’d love to tell you about. Therefore, if this world fascinates you, you should definitely come to Parma! In the city you can find wonderful theaters (such as the Farnese and the Regio), the Opera Museum, the Museo Casa Natale (Birthplace Museum) of Arturo Toscanini.
A few kilometers away, the “Verdi’s Places” await us: from the birthplace in the village of Roncole, to the many Verdi’s memories preserved in Busseto, and then to Villa Verdi, in Sant’Agata, where the Maestro lived most of his life and where you can find precious memories, furnishings and atmospheres. The musical emotions, anyway, go well with the “joys of the table”: here good food is at home. Contact me for an unmissable itinerary!
Liberty and Déco:
In Parma’s land… and beyond
Do you love the sinuous, “vegetal” lines of Liberty but also the more geometric taste of Art Déco? Starting from Parma, we can follow this seductive “track”: you’ll get surprised!
You will discover original monuments and buildings in the city and world-class masterpieces in the outskirts. In late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Salsomaggiore Terme turned into a Capital of Liberty-Déco, thanks to architects such as Luigi Broggi, Ugo Giusti and Giulio Bernardini, wrought iron artists such as Alessandro Mazzucotelli and above all the decorative genius of Galileo Chini, who left some of his greatest masterpieces right here.
The grandeur and exoticism of the Berzieri Baths and the Grand Hotel des Thèrmes (now Palazzo dei Congressi) will leave you breathless! But a walk through Salsomaggiore will also reveal a thousand other details and curiosities. Do you want to follow the splendid traces of these styles in other places in Emilia-Romagna? We have so many possibilities.
And if you wanted an itinerary of Liberty-Déco and Galileo Chini’s activity taking you aven beyond the Apennines … well, I have many destinations to suggest, from Versilia to the land of Pistoia. Contact me: it can become a truly enchanted journey!
Don Camillo’s father:
Guareschi, Brescello and the Parma Lowland
Did the adventures of the parish priest Don Camillo and the mayor Peppone make you smile and get moved? In general, do the books of “Giovannino” keep you good company? Then you are one of the millions of readers and viewers from all over the world who still appreciate Giovanni Guareschi’s books and the films that Julien Duvivier based on them.
Do you want to know more about the author and immerse yourself in the atmosphere of these unforgettable stories and characters? Then follow me to Brescello, which was the main set of the films dedicated to the two friends-adversaries Don Camillo and Peppone: you will find places and symbolic objects, as well as an entire museum dedicated to this worldwide success, which changed the life of a whole area.
But it is possible to follow Guareschi’s own story also in Parma and travelling around the “Bassa Parmense” (Parma Lowland or Plain), the plain that’s so close to the Po river: from Fontanelle di Roccabianca to Parma and Roncole Verdi, where he wanted to stay forever and managed a restaurant with his family, now home to a permanent exhibition, a Study Center and the Club of the most ardent fans of “Giovannino”.