This splendid residence, still inhabited today by the Princes Meli Lupi, is considered a fine example of early Baroque. The peculiarities of this style are found in the furniture and accessories furnishing the rooms, along with evidence from other eras. The tour itinerary of the castle’s rooms, where the original furnishings are preserved, starts from the Red Room on the ground floor, with six landscapes by Francesco Monti, known as il Brescianino, framed by the precious carvings of Giuseppe Bosi. Through the Billiard Room or Ancestors’ Room, you then access the Stuccos Hall, designed in 1688 by the architect Draghi for Giampaolo IV, who commissioned the frescoes with The Triumph of the Meli Lupi from Francesco and Ferdinando Bibiena, likely the authors of the designs for the stuccoes by Giacomo Mercoli. From the nearby Poets’ Gallery, built in 1792 by Giovan Battista Fontana, you reach the Oratory of the Holy Cross, built in 1616 by the Cremonese Pedardi and decorated by Mercoli in 1697. Here are preserved the funeral monument of Ugolotto Lupi, from 1351, originally in the church of S. Francesco al Prato in Parma, and a marble relief by Giovanni Antonio Amadeo, dated 1470. From the sixteenth-century construction of the palace date the Grottoes Hall frescoed by Cesare Baglione and the Hercules Room, painted around 1543 by Niccolò dell’Abate. The visit to the noble floor culminates with the apartment of Giampaolo IV, consisting of the throne room, the lounge, and the alcove. The complex, created in the early 1700s and covered with gilded carvings and stuccoes by Lorenzo Aili and Giacomo Mercoli, represents undoubtedly the most extraordinary episode in interior decoration regionally, made even more precious by the Venetian Fanoli furniture.
Information about Rocca Meli Lupi
Piazza Meli Lupi, 5,
43019 Soragna (Parma)
0524597978
meli_lupi@libero.it
Source: MIBACT
