From Saturday 1st June 2024, the Monumental Complex of the Pilotta in Parma will be enriched with three new locations: the Antica Spezieria di San Giovanni Evangelista (Parma), the Castello di Torrechiara (Langhirano – PR) and the Archaeological Park and Antiquarium of Veleia (Lugagnano Val D’Arda – PC).
Starting from June 25th, visitors will have the possibility to access all the sites of the Complex with a single ticket for 25 euros (with a visit to the Pilotta Monumental Complex on the day of purchase or booking and a visit to the other sites within thirty days).
The expansion of the cultural offering was decided by the Ministry of Culture (MIC) which, with the Ministerial Decree of 9 February 2024, made significant changes to the Decree of 23 December 2014, regarding the organization and operation of state museums. The management of the sites will therefore pass from the Regional Museum Directorate (DRM) Emilia-Romagna to the Monumental Complex of Pilotta, to ensure administrative continuity.
The Torrechiara Castle and the Veleia Archaeological Park and Antiquarium , regularly open to the public with the online ticketing and booking system, will pass under the management of the Pilotta Monumental Complex; while the Antica Spezieria will be inaugurated on June 24 , at the end of the redevelopment works.
After the inauguration of the New Pilotta – says Stefano L’Occaso, Director of the Monumental Complex of the Pilotta – which saw the completion last November of the project carried out by the former director Simone Verde, now at the helm of the Uffizi Galleries, we are very proud to announce this further enrichment that sees the inclusion of three new museum sites, which are delivered to us, after years of care, by the Regional Directorate of Museums of Emilia Romagna: the Antica Spezieria di San Giovanni Evangelista, in Parma, the Castello di Torrechiara and the Archaeological Park of Veleia. This expansion represents an important opportunity to enhance and promote our cultural heritage, also restoring the relationship between the archaeological area of Veleia and the Archaeological Museum of Parma, which was born in the eighteenth century thanks to the excavations conducted on that site. Our commitment is to continue to preserve and share the history and beauty of these extraordinary places.
Ancient Apothecary of San Giovanni Evangelista – Parma
The first news of the existence of a pharmacy in the abbey complex of San Giovanni Evangelista in Parma dates back to 1201, but its foundation could be even earlier, since the monastery was founded in 980 AD. It is likely that at first the pharmacy was only at the service of the Benedictines and that only later did it become public. The current arrangement, as regards the furnishings, dates back to the end of the 16th century and the first years of the following one, while the layout of the rooms underwent a radical change in 1766, when the Benedictines had to secularize the pharmacy to avoid the definitive closure imposed by the Bourbon minister Guglielmo Du Tillot. In 1896 the State acquired the premises, which, reopened to the public in 1951, contain a collection of mortars, jars, vases, stills and other objects from various institutions and private donations. Of the original eight rooms of the Spezieria, four remain today: the Sala del Fuoco, the Sala dei Mortai, the Sala delle Sirene and finally the Sala del Pozzo. All the rooms take their name from the specificity of their contents or from the decorative elements that characterize them.
*The Antica Spezieria will open to the public on June 25. The single-site ticket can be purchased online from June 15. The combined ticket can be purchased online and physically at the ticket office of the Monumental Complex of the Pilotta starting from June 25, 2024. There will be no physical ticket office at the Antica Spezieria di San Giovanni Evangelista.
Torrechiara Castle – Langhirano (Parma)
Located south of the city of Parma, in a hilly area of the Apennines that has been cultivated with vineyards for centuries, in a strategic position on a hill overlooking the valley below, the Torrechiara Castle is one of the most notable examples of fortified architecture not only in Emilia-Romagna, but in all of Italy. Built between 1448 and 1460 as a residence and defense by Pier Maria Rossi, Count of San Secondo, the fortress shows the influence of the Sforza-Visconti castles: built on a walled platform located at the top of a terraced hill, it is composed of the manor, the ancient upper village, an internal courtyard, four corner towers and numerous underground rooms, which can now be visited after restoration work completed in 2006. The interior of the Castle is full of frescoed rooms, mainly with naturalistic, fantastic and grotesque themes. On the ground floor, the decorations of the rooms of Jupiter, the Pergola, the Victory, and the Velarium are to be attributed to Cesare Baglione; while the room of the Angels, with references to Correggio’s dome in the Cathedral of Parma, is to an anonymous artist from Parma from the first decades of the 17th century. On the upper floor is the large hall of the Acrobats, with frescoes also by Baglione and Giovan Antonio Paganino (last decades of the 16th century) and the more famous Golden Room (north-east tower), the wedding room that owes its name to the pure gold leaves that once covered the wall panels, frescoed between 1460 and 1462 by Benedetto Bembo (1420/25-1493?), or, according to recent attribution hypotheses, by his lesser-known brother Gerolamo, with scenes from the ritual of chivalrous love. In 2004, the Superintendency of BAP of Emilia, which had been entrusted with the castle, oversaw a new layout, with the philological relocation of the surviving furnishings (including the raised bed with a wedding blanket, the small table, the prayer bench, the chest) and the change of the visiting route, which begins here, as an introductory antecedent to the fifteenth-sixteenth century rooms and the original Golden Chamber and testimony to the cultural climate of Parma at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Archaeological Park and Antiquarium of Veleia – Lugagnano Val D’Arda (Piacenza)
The municipium of Veleia was founded following the Roman conquest in the 2nd century BC in the heart of the territory of the Ligurian tribe of Veleates, on the site of a pre-existing indigenous center. The city developed on a system of sloping terraces. The forum was built on an artificial plateau obtained with a massive excavation. Paved at the time of Augustus by Lucius Licinius Priscus, an important local magistrate, it is surrounded on three sides by a portico onto which shops and public spaces opened. An imposing entrance allowed access from the lowest terrace. On the opposite side the complex was closed by the basilica, where the twelve large statues in Luni marble stood, depicting members of the Julio-Claudian family, today in the National Archaeological Museum of Parma. Upstream are the remains of the living quarters and a thermal building. A cultural heritage of the region since 1760, when the Duke of Parma Don Filippo di Borbone began its exploration following the chance discovery (in 1747) of the bronze inscription of Trajan’s Tabula Alimentaria, Veleia is today one of the most important archaeological centers in northern Italy. The Antiquarium, recently reorganized, houses finds that illustrate the most significant moments in the history of Veleia.