Busseto

Busseto sits in the Bassa Parmense, twenty-five kilometers northwest of Parma, in the flat farming country between the Po and the Apennine foothills. The town was the capital of the Stato Pallavicino for almost five hundred years before it was absorbed into the Duchy of Parma. Giuseppe Verdi was born on 9 or 10 October 1813 in Roncole, the frazione three kilometers east, and moved into Busseto itself in 1824 as a boy.

The Teatro Giuseppe Verdi opened in 1868 inside the Rocca dei Pallavicino, seating 300; Verdi contributed 10,000 lire to its construction, kept his own box, and is reputed never to have set foot inside it. The Casa Natale at Roncole has been a national monument since 1901. Villa Sant'Agata, the country house Verdi bought in 1848 and lived in until his death, lies five kilometers north. The Bassa around the town produces Culatello di Zibello and the Parmigiano Reggiano the local consortium has aged here since the nineteenth century.