Cristina Cecchinelli

The essay analyzes the figure and the action of cardinal Alessandro Farnese, then Pope Paul III, as bishop-administrator of the diocese of Parma, between 1509 and 1534. In spite of his almost continuative absence from the diocese to live in the Papal court, cardinal Farnese was able to create a series of relations with the local powers, laical and ecclesiastical – in a period of deep changements in the political life of the city – which allowed him to lay the foundations for the building of the Farnese duchy of Parma and Piacenza.