The territory of the provinces of Parma and Piacenza, that the history us delivery enclosed within the ancient borders of the Ducato of the Farnese and the Borbone, can be defined a "layer" of castles.
Culture, art and atmosphere, joined to a great enogastronomical tradition, and constitute the essence of this earth laid between Appennini and the Po, about an hour by car from Milan or half an hour of flight from Rome. Castles and fortresses are to disposition of the visitors long the roads that interlace the two Provinces, on the spurs of mounts, between the necks that degrade towards the plain, in lands close to the great Po river.
Structures historical medieval, renaissance, baroque, judged one of the richest and better conserved in Italy, offer the chance to understand not only the architectonic evolution but the political and social one, of these lands and Italy too.

The Ducato is born in the 1545, with the election as Pope of the cardinal Alexander Farnese with the name of Paul III, that it creates a state for the natural son Pier Luigi.
From then, until the Unit of Italy, for approximately 300 years the representatives of the dynasties of the Farnese and the Borbone succeed themselves to the government of the Ducato, until the Conference of Vienna, when it is delivered to Maria Luigia of Austria, Napoleon's wife. Who will visit the Castles of the Ducato will be able to read the history of the powerful families that have inhabited them, of the great artists who have worked, of the loves and the fights that have rendered them so celebrated.