The Golden Room among the vineyards
On a hill overlooking the Parma valley, among vineyards, near Langhirano, the Castello di Torrechiara is one of the most beautiful and spectacular castles in Italy, with its four massive corner towers, its walls and battlements, perfectly preserved. It was built between 1448 and 1460 by Pier Maria Rossi, Count of San Secondo, a condottiero, man of letters and one of the most powerful lords of the area, who wanted it both as a fortress and as a refined residence for his beloved, Bianca Pellegrini, a noblewoman from Como, with whom he lived a long love story despite being married.
The interior has rooms decorated in the sixteenth century with grotesques, landscapes and mythological scenes, but the jewel of the castle is the Camera d'Oro, the Golden Room, the bedroom of the two lovers, frescoed in the fifteenth century by Benedetto Bembo: on the vault and the lunettes, Bianca is depicted as a pilgrim of love wandering through the lands and castles of the Rossi, a sort of map of the count's possessions, while the walls were once covered with terracotta tiles decorated with the initials and emblems of the two lovers and covered with gold leaf, from which the room takes its name. From the loggias and towers, the view sweeps over the vineyards and hills. The castle was the set of the film "Ladyhawke" (1985), with Michelle Pfeiffer and Rutger Hauer. Below the castle, the village of Torrechiara has wineries of Malvasia and Lambrusco.
Tip: the castle is part of the circuit of the Castles of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza; at sunset the light on the towers is magical.
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