For almost two centuries Parma was ruled by the Farnese dukes, and after them by the Bourbons, and much of what you see in the centre was built for a court. This guide follows four places from that story: the Parco Ducale, the dukes' garden across the Parma stream; the vast Palazzo della Pilotta, their unfinished palace complex; the Renaissance church of Santa Maria della Steccata; and the Palazzo del Governatore on Piazza Garibaldi, where the city's own government met the dukes' officials. They are all on our scavenger hunt route, and you can link them in a single walk from west to east.
Parco Ducale
The Parco Ducale lies in the Oltretorrente, the district on the far side of the Parma stream from the old centre. Duke Ottavio Farnese had the idea of a park here in 1561, around a new villa, the Palazzo del Giardino, designed for him by the architect Vignola. In 1690 Duke Ranuccio II Farnese added a large oval pond with an island in the middle, made for the wedding of his son Odoardo and Dorothea Sophia of Neuburg and designed to host mock naval battles on the water.
The garden you walk through today is mostly the work of the Bourbons. From 1749, under Duke Philip of Bourbon, his minister Guillaume du Tillot gave the French architect Ennemond Alexandre Petitot the job of remaking it, and Petitot turned it into a formal French-style park with straight avenues. The marble statues and great vases along the paths were carved by Jean-Baptiste Boudard to Petitot's designs. The park is large, more than 20 hectares, and it is the first stop of our scavenger hunt.
- The Trianon Fountain on the island in the pond, made between 1712 and 1719 for the gardens of the ducal palace at Colorno and moved here in 1920.
- Boudard's statues: most of those along the avenues are copies, and the 18th-century originals stand under the loggia of the Palazzetto Eucherio Sanvitale, a Renaissance house inside the park.
- The Tempietto d'Arcadia, a small garden temple designed by Petitot in 1769.
Palazzo della Pilotta
Across the stream, the long brick bulk of the Pilotta fills one side of the old centre. It grew from around 1583, in the last years of Ottavio Farnese, along a corridor that linked the Rocchetta keep to the ducal palace. Its odd name is said to come from pelota, a ball game played here by Spanish soldiers stationed in Parma. The grand ducal palace that should have completed it, begun in 1622 under Ranuccio I, was never finished, which is why the side facing Piazza della Ghiaia still has no proper facade.
Today the Pilotta is a museum complex. It holds the Galleria Nazionale, the Biblioteca Palatina, the National Archaeological Museum and the Museo Bodoniano, devoted to the printer Giambattista Bodoni. The bombing of May 1944 damaged parts of the palace and destroyed the buildings next to it, whose place is now taken by the lawn of Piazzale della Pace. The Pilotta is the second stop of our scavenger hunt.
- The Teatro Farnese, built in 1618 by Giovanni Battista Aleotti inside a great hall of the palace. It was used only nine times, the last in 1732, was nearly destroyed in the 1944 raid and was rebuilt and reopened in 1962.
- The arcaded courtyards and the sheer length of the brick walls, best seen from Piazzale della Pace.
Santa Maria della Steccata
The Steccata takes its name from a fence. In the late 15th century a sacred image kept in a small oratory on this spot drew such crowds, with rumours of miracles, that a stockade, a steccata, was put up around it to hold people back. The city commissioned a new church for the image, built between 1521 and 1539 to designs by Bernardino Zaccagni and his son, with changes by Gian Francesco d'Agrate, who also made the statues along the roofline. Its dome dates from 1526 to 1527. The church was raised to a minor basilica in 2008.
The plan is a Greek cross: four equal arms, each closed by a half-dome, around the central dome, with four chapels in the corners, and the church has no bell tower. Inside, the young Parmigianino painted the vault of the eastern arch with the Wise and Foolish Virgins, the only part of his commission here that he finished; other painters completed the decoration, among them Michelangelo Anselmi, whose Coronation of the Virgin of 1541 fills the apse above the altar, and Bernardino Gatti, who painted the Assumption in the dome. The Steccata is one of the stops of our scavenger hunt.
- Parmigianino's Wise and Foolish Virgins, three on each side, carrying their lamps, on the underside of the arch.
- The funeral monument of Duke Ottavio Farnese. The crypt below, with the tombs of the Farnese family, is part of the museum of the Constantinian Order, entered from Via Dante.
Palazzo del Governatore and Piazza Garibaldi
Piazza Garibaldi is the main square of the old centre; in the Middle Ages it was called Piazza Nuova. On its north side stands the Palazzo del Governatore, built in 1283 to 1285 as the Palazzo dei Mercanti, the merchants' hall, after older houses were cleared. It was later used by the city's Captain, then by the Governor and other magistrates, which gave it its present name. The tall civic tower that stood here collapsed on 27 January 1606, and in 1673 the engineer Gian Battista Barattieri built the tower that now rises from the middle of the palace, with a large clock below its bell openings.
In 1760 the court architect Petitot, the same man who redesigned the Parco Ducale, gave the palace its neoclassical facade, with a central niche for a statue of the Crowned Virgin by Jean-Baptiste Boudard. After a long restoration it reopened in 2010 as a space for modern and contemporary art and now hosts temporary exhibitions. The Governor's Palace and Piazza Garibaldi are both stops of our scavenger hunt.
- The great sundials on the facade, made in 1829 for Duchess Marie Louise by Lorenzo Ferrari and Luigi Pazzoni.
- Boudard's Crowned Virgin in the niche at the centre of the facade, below the tower.
How to see them in one walk
Start in the Parco Ducale and give yourself time on its avenues and around the pond. Leave the park on the side facing the old centre and cross the Parma stream to the Palazzo della Pilotta; if you want to see the Teatro Farnese and the museums, plan a good part of your day here. Walk round the Pilotta past Piazzale della Pace and continue into the centre to Santa Maria della Steccata. From the church it is only a short walk to Piazza Garibaldi and the Palazzo del Governatore, where you can finish under the sundials, or carry on east towards the cathedral.
See Parma with World City Trail
Our Parma scavenger hunt turns the old centre into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops, from the Parco Ducale to the cathedral, and all four places in this guide are stops: the Parco Ducale, the Palazzo della Pilotta, the Steccata and the Governor's Palace with Piazza Garibaldi. The route also takes in the Verdi monument, Piazza della Pace, the Teatro Regio, the baptistery and the cathedral. At each stop you solve a puzzle and learn a story, at your own pace.
There is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Parma, for people who prefer a different format.
Play the Parma scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Parma →
Play the outdoor escape game in Parma →
Facts checked in October 2026.