The Rocca Pallavicino: The Marquis Fortress

The 16th century between popes and emperors
On 21 June 1543 it was the seat of the meeting between Charles V of Habsburg and Pope Paul III, who served the pontiff to obtain from the emperor the authorization to invest his son Pier Luigi in the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, as actually happened in 1545.

In 1585 the Pallavicino State was annexed to the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza. Almost three centuries later, in 1856, the fortress, in an advanced state of decay, was sold by the Ducal Chamber to the Municipality of Busseto, which commissioned the Parmesan architect Pier Luigi Montecchini to carry out its complete renovation in neo-Gothic style.

The renovation, from 1857 onwards
The works, started in 1857 and completed in 1868, involved the entire building, of which only the sixteenth-century keep and a few other elements were kept intact. The Rocca develops around a central square courtyard; three of the four external corners are occupied by towers added during the nineteenth-century restructuring. The elevations are covered almost entirely in brick, with the exception of the first level of the main facade, which is plastered.

At the center of the latter rises the sixteenth-century keep; crowned by the dovetail battlements, Ghibelline, the high tower is dominated by a large central clock, above which the belfry opens through a mullioned window on each of the four sides.

On the sides, two perfectly symmetrical wings rise on a portico with round arches, on the first level there is a series of elaborate pointed mullioned windows surrounded by a frame with pilasters and terracotta tiles. Above them elegant shell-shaped terracotta medallions are set, while a cornice with neo-Gothic arches runs to the crown.

Crossing the main entrance at the base of the central tower, you enter the internal courtyard, dominated on the south side by a portico with an overhanging brick loggia; on the opposite wall there is a stone high relief depicting an imperial eagle, the coat of arms of the Marquises Pallavicino, originally positioned on the southern entrance to the town.

Even today the Rocca is the municipal seat: the municipal offices are in fact located in the left wing, while the entrance to the Giuseppe Verdi Theater is located under the portico on the right side.

The monument to Verdi was commissioned to the sculptor Luigi Secchi, who completed it in 1913. The Maestro is depicted seated in an armchair, ideally located in the heart of the town, as if to placidly supervise the flow of life.