Antelami's Baptistery and Correggio's dome
Parma, an elegant city of the plain, the capital of a duchy for three centuries under the Farnese and the Bourbons, and then under Marie Louise of Austria, Napoleon's wife, has in Piazza del Duomo one of the most harmonious monumental groups in Italy. The Baptistery, begun in 1196 by Benedetto Antelami, the great sculptor and architect, is an octagonal tower of pink Verona marble, with four orders of loggias, and is one of the masterpieces of the transition from Romanesque to Gothic. Antelami also carved its sculptures: on the outside, the portals with scenes from the Bible, and inside, the famous cycle of the Months and Seasons, figures of peasants at work, one of the most important sculptural cycles of the Middle Ages, under a dome entirely painted with thirteenth century frescoes.
Next to it stands the Romanesque Cathedral, with its façade of loggias and lions, which houses another masterpiece: the dome painted by Correggio between 1526 and 1530, with the Assumption of the Virgin, a whirlwind of figures of angels and saints rising into a sky of light, which anticipated the illusionistic painting of the baroque; a contemporary called it a "frog stew", for the many legs seen from below. Inside there is also the "Deposition" relief by Antelami, of 1178. A few steps away, the church of San Giovanni Evangelista has another dome by Correggio, and the Camera di San Paolo his frescoes for an abbess.
Tip: a single ticket covers the Baptistery, the Diocesan Museum and the Cathedral area; bring binoculars to see Correggio's dome in detail.
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