Parma in the context of "Madonna with the Long Neck"

Emilia-Romagna (UK: /ɪˌmiːliə roʊˈmɑːnjə/, US: /eɪˌ-/, both also /ɛˌ-/, Italian: [eˈmiːlja roˈmaɲɲa]) is an administrative region of northern Italy, comprising the historical regions of Emilia and Romagna. Its capital is Bologna. It has a population of over 4.4 million in an area of 22,509.67 km (8,691 sq mi).

Emilia-Romagna is one of the wealthiest and most developed regions in Europe, with the third highest gross domestic product per capita in Italy. It is also a cultural center, being the home of the University of Bologna, the oldest university in the world. Some of its cities, such as Modena, Parma, Ferrara, and Ravenna, are UNESCO heritage sites. It is a center for food and automobile production (such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Maserati). It has coastal resorts such as Cervia, Cesenatico, and Rimini. In 2018, the Lonely Planet guide named Emilia-Romagna as the best place to see in Europe.

Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (11 January 1503 – 24 August 1540), also known as Francesco Mazzola or, more commonly, as Parmigianino (UK: /ˌpɑːrmɪdʒæˈniːnoʊ/, US: /-dʒɑːˈ-/, Italian: [parmidʒaˈniːno]; "the little one from Parma"), was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, Bologna, and his native city of Parma. His work is characterized by a "refined sensuality" and often elongation of forms and includes Vision of Saint Jerome (1527) and the iconic if somewhat anomalous Madonna with the Long Neck (1534), and he remains the best known artist of the first generation whose whole careers fall into the Mannerist period.

His prodigious and individual talent has always been recognised, but his career was disrupted by war, especially the Sack of Rome in 1527, three years after he moved there, and then ended by his death at 37. He produced outstanding drawings, and was one of the first Italian painters to experiment with printmaking himself. While his portable works have always been keenly collected and are now in major museums in Italy and around the world, his two large projects in fresco are in a church in Parma and a palace in a small town nearby. This in conjunction with their lack of large main subjects has resulted in their being less well known than other works by similar artists. He painted a number of important portraits, leading a trend in Italy towards the three-quarters or full-length figure, previously mostly reserved for royalty.

A gastald (Latin gastaldus or castaldus; Italian gastaldo or guastaldo) was a Lombard official in charge of some portion of the royal demesne (a gastaldate, gastaldia or castaldia) with civil, martial, and judicial powers.

By the Edictum Rothari of 643, the gastalds were given the civil authority in the cities and the reeves the like authority in the countryside. Under the Lombard dominion, territories were delimited by giudicati or "judgments" among the several gastalds. From the immediate region of Parma and of Piacenza, numerous such giudicati survive, which cover the range of Lombard rule. The documents follow the same formalized structure, of which one between the gastald Daghiberto and the gastald Immo was adjudged by Adaloald, at Ticino, November 615.

Sir Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari KCB CSI (4 July 1841 – 3 September 1879) was a British soldier and military administrator.

Cavagnari was the son of Count Louis Adolphus Cavagnari, of an old family from Parma in the service of the Bonaparte family, by his marriage in 1837 with an Anglo-Irish woman, Caroline Lyons-Montgomery. Cavagnari was born at Stenay, in the Meuse département, France, on 4 July 1841. He was killed on 3 September 1879 during the siege of the British Residency (then at Bala Hissar) in Kabul in Afghanistan.

The Shrine of Santa Maria della Steccata is a Greek-cross design Renaissance church in central Parma, Italy. The name derives from the fence (Italian: steccato) in the church. A Nursing Madonna is enshrined within, crowned on 27 May 1601 by a Marian devotee, Fray Giacomo di Forli of the Capuchin order. Pope Benedict XVI raised the Marian sanctuary to the status of Basilica minor on 9 February 2008.

The University of Parma (Italian: Università degli Studi di Parma, UNIPR) is a public university located in Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. Organized into nine departments, it is one of the oldest universities in the world. As of 2016, it had approximately 26,000 students.

The Duke of Parma and Piacenza (Italian: duca di Parma e Piacenza) was the ruler of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, a historical state of Northern Italy. It was created by Pope Paul III (Alessandro Farnese) for his son Pier Luigi Farnese. It existed between 1545 and 1802, and again from 1814 to 1859.

The Duke of Parma was also Duke of Piacenza, except for the first years of the rule of Ottavio Farnese (1549–1556), and the time of the Napoleonic Wars, when the two were established as separate positions held by two different individuals. The Duke of Parma also usually held the title of Duke of Guastalla from 1746 (when Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor occupied the Duchy of Guastalla after the last Gonzaga duke died childless) until 1847 (when the territory was ceded to Modena), except for the Napoleonic era, when Napoleon's sister Pauline was briefly Duchess of Guastalla and of Varella. The last duke, Robert I, was driven from power in a revolution following France and Sardinia's victory over Austria. Its territory was merged into Sardinia in 1860.

Sigifred of Lucca (also Sigefred, Siegfried) (died after 940) was a Lombard nobleman and the progenitor of the House of Canossa.

Donizo, the 12th-century biographer of the Canossa dynasty, refers to Sigifred as coming from ‘the county of Lucca’ (de comitatu Lucensis). Little is known about Sigifred. Although he was from Lucca, he was probably not count of Lucca. He moved from Tuscany to Emilia-Romagna c.924-930 when Hugh of Italy endowed him with lands around Parma. Sigifred also gained control of lands around Brescia.