What is Compiano known for?

Medieval fortress on a Taro spur, ruled by the Landi family for 425 consecutive years and used in 1821 by Maria Luigia as a Carbonari prison. Compiano was the seat of an autonomous Landi statelet that minted its own coin, ran state schools, and operated a pawn system into the eighteenth century. Wild porcini from the Val di Taro forests around Compiano and Borgo Val di Taro, granted Protected Geographical Indication status in 1996.

Compiano is a comune in the province of Parma, Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, about 85 kilometers from Parma.

Emilia-Romagna · Parma

Compiano

A 519-meter walled borgo over the Taro, ruled by the Landi for 425 years and used by Maria Luigia as a state prison.

519m

Elevation

85 km / 53 mi

Nearest hub (Parma)

1,058

Population

Apr–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Borghi più belli d'Italia

Why come

Compiano sits on a rocky spur at 519 meters above the Taro river, in the Parma Apennines on the road that links Emilia to Liguria. The fortress was raised by the Lombards in the early Middle Ages as a Carolingian stronghold defending the Val di Taro. It belonged in turn to the Malaspina, the Comune di Piacenza, and from the late thirteenth century to the Landi, who held the fief for 425 consecutive years. Under the Landi the borgo coined its own money, opened state schools and ran a pawn-shop system. In the eighteenth century Compiano passed from the Farnese to the Bourbons; Maria Luigia of Austria, Duchess of Parma after Napoleon, used the castle as a state prison for Carbonari captives in 1821. The castle was last privately owned by Marchesa Gambarotta and now belongs to the commune; it houses the International Masonic Museum, the only one in Italy, opened in 2002.

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Gallery

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Known for

Castello di Compiano
Medieval fortress built on a rocky spur above the Taro, expanded under the Landi family and used in 1821 by Maria Luigia as a state prison for the Carbonari.
Museo Internazionale Massonico
Masonic museum inside the castle, opened in 2002 in the Orizzonti Massonici collection, the only public museum on Freemasonry in Italy.
Borgo di Compiano
Walled medieval nucleus around the castle, with a single main street, stone houses, and views down to the Taro and across to the Ligurian Apennines.
Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista
Parish church inside the walls, rebuilt in the seventeenth century on the foundations of the older Romanesque pieve.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through October are the months that work in Compiano. May and June bring green Apennine slopes and clear views down the Taro toward Liguria; September and October are the porcini months, with the surrounding chestnut and beech woods producing the Fungo di Borgotaro IGP. July and August can touch thirty degrees in the valley but the spur stays cooler in shade. The castle and the Masonic museum open daily April through October and weekends only in winter. Snow holds the upper road from December into March. The September Sagra del Fungo in nearby Borgo Val di Taro, ten kilometers down the road, is when the whole Val di Taro fills with porcini buyers and trattorie keep extended hours.