(Langhirano, 13 July 2016) - On the occasion of the 200th Anniversary of the arrival to Parma of the duchess Marie Louise, the Parchi del Ducato, in collaboration with the Municipality and the Proloco association of Sala Baganza (PR) organize 6 events, ALL FREE OF CHARGE, about the court life atmospheres in the age of Marie Louise ("Atmosfere di vita di corte al tempo di Maria Luigia"), in the Parco Regionale Boschi di Carrega.
After the Congress of Vienna (1815) the Duchy of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla was entrusted to Marie Louise, the wife of Napoleon, who stayed in those forests and expanded the Villa Casino (between 1819 and 1826) by building the "extension" and the Casinetto
In 1827 the Villa Ferlaro was built for the children she had with her second husband, the Count Niepperg.
Marie Louise is remembered for many other works too, such as the English-style garden around the Villa and the beech forest in the small valley of the river Rio Buca Pelosa, today known as the "Faggeta di Maria Amalia" (Maria Amalia's beech forest), due to the presence of the "Cave of Maria Amalia", a country bath built by the Duchess in the late 1700, the ruins of which are still visible.
After Marie Louise's death, the ownership went back to the legitimate heirs of the House of Bourbons until Italian Unification, when it passed to the House of Savoy and then to the Carrega's noble family, the present owner of Villa Casino dei Boschi and of part of the monumental garden.
The establishment of the Parco Regionale dei Boschi di Carrega, the first in Emilia Romagna, dates back to 1982, but its establishment was planned about ten years earlier, when the Municipalities of the area and the Province of Parma founded a Consortium to stop the division into lots within the woods and to safeguard this area to make it available for the public.
View the detailed program