Palazzo della Pilotta

The Teatro Farnese is not a separate stop: the Pilotta describes it as part of the exhibition route and the way into the Galleria Nazionale. See our Teatro Farnese page for the theater itself.

1. Teatro Farnese (25 minutes). Walk onto the raised seating and down to the orchestra floor. Built by Giovan Battista Aleotti in 1617 to 1619 from painted wood and stucco, it held more than 3,000 spectators.
2. Galleria Nazionale, Renaissance rooms (50 minutes). Find Leonardo's small unfinished Head of a Young Woman, called La Scapigliata, painted around 1506 to 1508 and in Parma since 1839. Then Correggio's Madonna of Saint Jerome, known as Il Giorno, bought by the Duke in 1765, and Parmigianino's Turkish Slave, returned to Parma from the Uffizi in 1928.
3. The foreign masters (15 minutes). El Greco's Healing of the Man Born Blind and Sebastiano del Piombo's portrait of Pope Paul III Farnese, the man who founded the duchy.
4. Biblioteca Palatina or Museo Bodoni (20 minutes). Pick one. The library's Galleria Petitot is the grander room; Bodoni is the better story if you care about print.

That leaves the Archaeological Museum. It is good, but on a first visit with limited time, it is the one to drop. With children, reverse that: the Egyptian collection and the Veleia statues work better for them than a gallery of Madonnas.

Check these before you go:

• Correggio's Lamentation is on loan. The Pilotta has lent Correggio's Compianto su Cristo morto (about 1524) and a watercolor of the cathedral's Assumption to the exhibition Correggio. Movingly human at the Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, from September 19, 2026 to January 10, 2027. Both are off view in Parma for that period.
• Lighting works in the Galleria. From July 2 to September 30, 2026 some rooms were closed and, in room 11 (Tuscan painting 1200 to 1500), some works were covered. Leonardo's Scapigliata stayed on view. The Pilotta says the route as a whole is open.
• New exhibition from October 17. Giorgio Gandini del Grano: the enigma of a master in Correggio's footsteps runs October 17, 2026 to January 17, 2027. The Pilotta had not published whether it costs extra when we checked.
• Music section of the library. The Palatina's music collections, kept at the Arrigo Boito conservatory, are unavailable from March 16, 2026 until the end of 2027. This affects researchers, not the museum route.

Entry is free on the first Sunday of each month; the next ones are October 4, November 1 and December 6, 2026. Free days are busier, and the Pilotta says parts of the complex may close or keep shorter hours on them. Free entry also applies on April 25, June 2 and November 4.

The Monday closure moves around a few holidays. In 2026 the Pilotta opens on Monday, November 2 and closes on Thursday, November 5 instead; it opens on Monday, December 7 and closes on Wednesday, December 9 instead.

The same state museum runs three other sites, and a cumulative ticket at €25 covers all four: the Pilotta, the Antica Spezieria di San Giovanni (€5 alone), Torrechiara Castle (€8 alone) and the Roman site of Veleia (€5 alone). Pilotta plus Spezieria plus Torrechiara costs €31 separately, so the pass saves €6 if you will do those three. If you are not going to Torrechiara, buy the €18 ticket and pay €5 for the Spezieria on the day. The price list does not state how long the cumulative ticket stays valid, so ask at the desk.

Tickets are sold at the desk and online through the Pilotta's Ticka shop. The Pilotta does not publish a timed-entry limit for individual visitors; groups of 10 to 30 must choose an entry time and pay €14 each.

The entrance is at Piazza della Pilotta 5. From the station, walk down Viale Toschi or Via Verdi: the Pilotta says about ten minutes, and the route we measured is about 1 km (0.6 miles). City buses 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19 and 23 stop nearby. There is a paid underground car park beside the palace; read our ZTL and parking guide before you drive into the center.

Galleria Nazionale, Teatro Farnese, Archaeological Museum and Biblioteca Palatina are reachable by ramps, lifts and stair lifts. The Teatro Regio is a five-minute walk away, and Parco Ducale is across Ponte Verdi.

Parma: Historic Old Town Guided Walking Tour

Only the cathedral interior is visited; the Teatro Regio and the Pilotta are seen from outside and their tickets are extra.

2 hours

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