Galleria Nazionale di Parma: what to see first

What is in the Galleria Nazionale di Parma?

Italian and European painting from the Middle Ages to the 1800s, with Leonardo, Parmigianino and Correggio as the stars, and Fra Angelico, Guercino, van Dyck and El Greco among the rest.

• Leonardo da Vinci: La Scapigliata, also called Testa di fanciulla.
• Parmigianino: the Schiava turca.
• Correggio: several major works, including the Madonna della Scodella, the Madonna di San Girolamo and the Martyrdom of Four Saints.
• Antonio Canova: the statue of Maria Luigia as Concordia.
• Also: Fra Angelico's Madonna and Child with Saints, Guercino's Susanna and the Elders, a van Dyck Madonna and Child and El Greco's Christ Healing the Blind (titles as listed by English Wikipedia).

Where is Leonardo's La Scapigliata?

In the Galleria Nazionale: it is a small, unfinished painting of a young woman's head, about 1508, and easy to miss if you are looking for something big.

The name means the lady with dishevelled hair, for the loose, sketched hair around a carefully shaded face. It is a painted sketch in umber and white lead on a poplar panel, only 24.7 by 21 cm: according to Wikipedia, the smallest painting attributed to Leonardo. Look for a single small frame rather than a large canvas. Visitors report that English labels are thin in much of the gallery, so read up on this one before you go.

What is Parmigianino's Schiava turca?

A portrait of an unknown young woman in a striped dress and a round headdress, painted about 1533; the title, Turkish Slave, comes from mistaking her headdress for a turban.

The headdress is a balzo, a fashionable accessory for noblewomen of the time, sewn with gilt thread and set with a medallion of Pegasus. The painting came to Parma from the Uffizi in 1928, in an exchange of works. The Correggio and Parmigianino tour on GetYourGuide ends in front of it, after the painters' frescoes in the churches of the city.

Parmigianino and Correggio in the churches, then their canvases in the Pilotta, with a guide in Italian.

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Which Correggio works can you see in 2026?

The Madonna della Scodella, the Madonna di San Girolamo and other canvases are in the gallery, but his Lamentation (Compianto su Cristo morto, about 1524) is on loan to Dresden until January 2027.

From 8 September 2026, two Pilotta works went to the exhibition Correggio. Movingly human at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden (19 September 2026 to 10 January 2027): the Lamentation and a watercolour of the Vergine Assunta in gloria. Correggio's greatest works are not in the gallery anyway: they are the painted domes of the Duomo and San Giovanni Evangelista, a short walk away and free to enter. See Parma in one day.

What else is worth finding in the gallery?

Canova's marble statue of Duchess Maria Luigia, and the new decorative arts section in the Hall of the Triumph.

Maria Luigia, Napoleon's second wife, ruled Parma after 1815, and Canova portrayed her as Concordia, the personification of harmony. The Hall of the Triumph has gained a decorative arts section as part of the restoration work. Painting fans should also look for Fra Angelico, Guercino, van Dyck and El Greco; the gallery covers far more than Parma's own painters.

What is open in the Galleria Nazionale in 2026?

Most of it: halls closed for restoration reopened after 31 August 2026, but the North Halls open at 10:30 and, on free Sundays, about 13 rooms may close.

The museum reopened a set of halls after a major restoration, with a new director, Denis Ton, from 20 April 2026. From 17 October 2026 to 17 January 2027 the Pilotta shows Giorgio Gandini del Grano: l'enigma di un maestro sulle orme di Correggio, the first exhibition on this Parma painter, with all nine paintings attributed to him and loans from the Albertina in Vienna and the Louvre. The announcement does not say whether it needs a separate ticket, so check at the box office.

What are the Biblioteca Palatina and the Bodoni museum?

The Palatina is the ducal library founded in 1761, with the largest collection of Hebrew manuscripts in Italy; the Bodoni museum shows the tools of Parma's great printer, Giambattista Bodoni.

Duke Philip of Bourbon founded the Palatina in 1761 with his minister Guillaume Du Tillot. Its Music Section is closed to visitors until 31 December 2027. Bodoni (1740 to 1813) designed some of the most famous typefaces ever made; his museum opened in 1963 and moved to the ground floor of the Palatina in November 2022. Both are on the same ticket. On free Sundays in 2026 they opened only in the morning.

How long do you need in the Galleria Nazionale?

An hour or two for the gallery, and about 3 hours for the whole Pilotta, the museum's own estimate.

Start with the Teatro Farnese, since the North Halls open only at 10:30. Visitors report that the layout can be confusing and that English labels are thin, so a list of the works you want to see helps. For a guide in English inside the gallery, you need a private tour: the private art day spends about an hour here. The Italian-language Pilotta group tour ($26, rated 4.2 from 17 reviews) is the budget option. Both are in Pilotta tours compared.

The gallery's Correggio, Parmigianino and Canova, then the Teatro Farnese, with a licensed guide in Italian.

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