Rocca Sanvitale

Fontanellato's Rocca Sanvitale is a moated fortress that served as the Sanvitale family's seat for six centuries. The castle's museum includes Parmigianino's Diana and Actaeon frescoes and a nineteenth-century camera ottica that projects the town square onto screens inside the building.

Why it matters

The Rocca combines a long history of aristocratic residence with a remarkable Renaissance decorative cycle. The castle was built over an earlier structure recorded in 1124, and remained the Sanvitale seat until the family ceded it to the municipality in 1948. Its moat, fed by spring water, remains an unusual feature of the town centre.

What to notice

The Saletta di Diana e Atteone was painted by the young Parmigianino in 1523–24 for Galeazzo Sanvitale and Paola Gonzaga. Putti and a painted pergola frame a sky opening in the vault; a round mirror bears the motto Respice finem. Fourteen lunettes depict the story of Diana and Actaeon from Ovid's Metamorphoses. The museum rooms also include the Sala delle Armi, dining and reception rooms, a billiard room, bridal chamber and Galleria degli Antenati. In a tower, the camera ottica uses prisms and mirrors to project images of the square onto three screens.

Context and history

A building on the site is recorded in 1124, before the fourteenth-century fortress rose as the Sanvitale stronghold. Its interiors developed over the family's long residence. Parmigianino, born Francesco Mazzola in Parma in 1503, painted the celebrated fresco cycle in the 1520s. After the family transferred the castle to the municipality in 1948, the rooms were adapted as a museum.