National Gallery of Parma

The Museum in the Palazzo della Pilotta

Inside the Palazzo della Pilotta, the National Gallery of Parma houses, among others, the works of Canaletto, Correggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Parmigianino, Tintoretto and part of the collection of the Academy of Fine Arts. Its history began in the Renaissance with the Farnese family who started the Ducal Academy of Fine Arts in 1752. Its collections constitute the original nucleus of the current Gallery.

After various acquisitions, gifts and transfers, an important collection of works began to form, in particular under the Duchess Maria Luigia. She was responsible for the birth of a real public museum with many noble collections purchased to avoid them being dispersed. In 1900, the collection was reorganized with works and paintings for schools by origin and by chronology. There are two exhibition routes, which start from the Farnese Theater, and branch off along corridors with spaces dedicated to sculptural works among which some pieces by Antelami and other sculptors of his time stand out.

The route continues into the nineteenth-century halls with the collections of the Academy and portraits of the Bourbon era and Maria Luigia. Then in the halls of the ancient Rocchetta, you can admire the works of the School of Parma from the sixteenth century, in particular of Correggio and Parmigianino protagonists in the Parma of the Renaissance era.