Busseto what to see, guide to the discovery of the village and the places dear to Giuseppe Verdi and writer Giovannino Guareschi.
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Busseto what to see
Roncole Verdi
Busseto is the land of Giuseppe Verdi. Here every corner speaks of the illustrious citizen born on October 10, 1813 in Roncole Verdi hamlet, in a rural house now home of the multimedia museum dedicated to the great composer. The ideal place to go to the discovery of this town of the parmense that represents an indispensable stage for all fans of music, and not only.
House Barezzi
Another Verdian museum is located in the center of the municipality of Busseto, housed in Casa Barezzi, a former home of the father-in-law of the musician, who married his daughter Margherita, to whom one must discover the talent of the young Verdi. Here are exposed relics, autograph letters, portraits, documents and memorabilia, but these environments were also the laboratory in which Verdi's youth symphonies were studied and composed, while the nineteenth-century Salone – then seat of the Filarmonica Bussetana and later entrusted to the care of the Associazione Amici di Verdi – was the setting for its first public exhibition.
Teatro Giuseppe Verdi
Considered the most beautiful city living room, the Giuseppe Verdi Theatre is housed in the 14th century foundation fortress. Opened in 1868 with a representation of the Rigoletto, Busseto's operatic jewel is considered a symbol of Verdi's melodramatics and has hosted authentic legends such as Arturo Toscanini, Franco Zeffirelli and Riccardo Muti.
National Museum Giuseppe Verdi
The 16th century Villa Pallavicino, surrounded by a magnificent park, is home to National Museum Giuseppe Verdi that tells the life and art of the most represented opera composer in the world, through the reproductions of the original sceneries of Casa Ricordi, the theatrical lights, the costumes of the Verdian heroines, the living room, the music room, the Mass hall from Requiem and the audioguides in 4 languages with texts by Philippe Daverio.
The visit of the museum is also an opportunity to admire one of the most beautiful noble residences of the Parmense, with the elegant rooms frescoed by Evangelista Draghi, Ilario Spolverini and Pietro Rubini and decorated by the stuccoes of Carlo Bossi. In the stables, the Renata Tebaldi Museum, dedicated to one of Verdi's most prestigious interpreters, has been found since 2014.
Roncole Verdi e Giovannino Guareschi
In addition to the birthplace of the Master, Busseto was also the place of adoption of the writer Giovannino Guareschi, who, right in Roncole Verdi, near the birthplace of the Master, wanted to open in 1964 a bar with adjoining restaurant, today seat of the permanent exhibition dedicated to his work.
In the former dining room of Casa Guareschi in Roncole Verdi, the Club dei Ventitré has prepared the permanent anthological exhibition "Giovannino nostra babbo", which collects books, numbers of Candido and Bertoldo, notes, drawings, cartoons, letters and much more about the life and works of the writer of Fontanelle, creator, among other things, of the saga of Don Camillo and Peppone. The small Centro Studi del primo piano adds the Archivio Guareschi, a monumental collection of more than 200,000 documents.
Other places to see in Busseto
Returning to Busseto, to see Palazzo del Monte di Pietà, built around the 80s of 1600 on project by Domenico Valmagini, prestigious and well-stocked library with many five hundred and old books owned by Fondazione Cariparma. The large porticos on the ground floor, the façade and the elegant cornices of the windows with alternating tympani are a significant example of the architecture of the city in the Baroque period.
Among what to see in Busseto, also the fifteenth-century Collegiate Church of San Bartolomeo, built between 1437 and 1450 by the will of Orlando Pallavicino the Magnificent; the adjacent small Church of the Holy Trinity, where the Master married with Margherita Barezzi; the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, with the famous sculptural representation of the regret.
And since we are in the heart of Food Valley, there is no better way to conclude the visit of Busseto with a slice of traditional sponta, flat and round-shaped cake, whose recipe – based on bread crumbled, black cherry, nuts, honey, sugar, pine nuts, sultan grapes, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, orange peel, white wine – is documented since the 1300s.
