You make plans to go somewhere and people say why are you going there and you explain and wonder if you did make the right decision and then... arriving in Piacenza we knew we had made a good decision.
We were in Piacenza from Saturday 29 September to Wednesday 3 October. A modern city with lots of history. Lively, a dormitory of Milan but also a weekend day trip from Milan, even for cats, or a very young cat. This lovely group from Milano asked us to take their photo at the Palazzo Farnese and then included us for more photos.
and this is the kind of street to walk to reach the Palace, from our address
A gentler walk than the Farnese family had in Piacenza. Pope Paul 3, who made nepotism a brazen art form, stole Piacenza and Parma from the Papal States and gave them to his eldest son, Pier Luigi Farnese. These were turbulent times, wikipedia covers Paul 3 and Pier Luigi fairly graphically. It is evident that as an archetypical big timer of those days Pier Luigi was a bully, but as seems the case with bullies, his feelings were hurt when big time people in Piacenza called him rotten names. And then guys in Milan supported by Emperor Charlie 5 did him in. The Farnese sulked off to live in Parma... and the Piacentini have sulked ever since at the loss of intellectual property in the transfer of the fabled ham and cheese skills to Parma.
So the Palazzo Farnese in Piacenza was never finished, They did leave some classy art items there, but those were later sent to Naples as the foundation collection of the Capodimonte palace, by Elizabeth Farnese, perhaps the most remarkable woman of the 1700s, certainly one of the most remarkable rulers of the 1700s.
We were in Piacenza from Saturday 29 September to Wednesday 3 October. A modern city with lots of history. Lively, a dormitory of Milan but also a weekend day trip from Milan, even for cats, or a very young cat. This lovely group from Milano asked us to take their photo at the Palazzo Farnese and then included us for more photos.
and this is the kind of street to walk to reach the Palace, from our address
A gentler walk than the Farnese family had in Piacenza. Pope Paul 3, who made nepotism a brazen art form, stole Piacenza and Parma from the Papal States and gave them to his eldest son, Pier Luigi Farnese. These were turbulent times, wikipedia covers Paul 3 and Pier Luigi fairly graphically. It is evident that as an archetypical big timer of those days Pier Luigi was a bully, but as seems the case with bullies, his feelings were hurt when big time people in Piacenza called him rotten names. And then guys in Milan supported by Emperor Charlie 5 did him in. The Farnese sulked off to live in Parma... and the Piacentini have sulked ever since at the loss of intellectual property in the transfer of the fabled ham and cheese skills to Parma.
So the Palazzo Farnese in Piacenza was never finished, They did leave some classy art items there, but those were later sent to Naples as the foundation collection of the Capodimonte palace, by Elizabeth Farnese, perhaps the most remarkable woman of the 1700s, certainly one of the most remarkable rulers of the 1700s.
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