Other Parma sights: an old pharmacy and Cadfael

November 20, 2007 Tuesday

The Old Pharmacy in the Benedictine Abbey was built in the 900s and originally served the Abbey monks (think Cadfael here). Later, during Napoleon’s reign, the abbey was forced to either shut it down or open to the general public. At that time, an external door was opened onto the street. The pharmacy consisted of 5 rooms, of which 4 are open for visiting. The first room is the dispensing room, where various scales with standard counter-weights for drams and scruples are displayed. Here also is the original counter.

Off this are 3 other rooms: the poison room (not open to be viewed), the laboratory in which compounds were made and which has a water well fed by a spring that is still usable. The laboratory room contains displays of various glassware used in “cooking” and distilling medicines. The other two rooms were mainly used for storage of prepared medicines and the pharmacy library. Here you can view a variety of porcelain jars from the 1200s and 1400s, huge mortars with pestles used to grind ingredients and made of wood, iron, bronze, or marble, and quite a few ancient books on herbs and the compounding of various medicines. I found this all pretty interesting (a background in chemistry lends itself to such things, I suppose).

Later, I visited the Battistero or baptistery. It’s octagonal here, as it is in Florence. There are some interesting frescoes on the ceiling, but generally, not much to look at. The Duomo has only minimal lighting during visiting hours and today was overcast, so there wasn’t much sunlight coming in. It was hard to see much. You get the impression of the huge nave approaching the altar (where some of the only light could be found). You can pay to have lights turned on 3 specific areas of interest to art lovers (I paid, and saw some of the frescoes painted on the walls or ceiling). The Diocesan Museum contains archeological remains found while renovating the Duomo, some from Roman times.

There is a museum dedicated to the Constantine chivalric order as represented in Parma (e.g., the Knights of Malta and Knights of St. George). The museum is housed in the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Steccata. There are only guided tours and I got there for the last one of the day. Just me and the guide. The guide didn’t speak English, so I got the whole tour in Italian—okay, maybe I got 25% of what he said. Most of the guide’s explanations were about the history of the Knights in Parma and which duke did what, when, etc. The tour also included viewing the old sacristy used by the Prior of the order and the Grand Knight. The sacristy walls are completely covered by carved wood cabinets that store an immense treasure of chalices, reliquaries, vestments of silk embroidered with silver and gold thread, etc. The wood carving of these cabinets is astounding. The visit to the sacristy was worth the previous 50 minutes of rather uninteresting history.

Dinner at Il Cortile (Michelin rated, 2 forks). Nice dining room, but not a great place (it’s quite a hike from the hotel, and not worth it). Service was okay, not great. The first two half-bottles of wine I ordered they didn’t have (after going to look). The third, a nero d’avalo, at their suggestion was the fruitiest and sweetest I’ve ever had. I rarely send a wine back, but this was one. Finally they came up with a Chianti that hadn’t been on the menu. By this time, I’d already finished the antipasto of mixed hams and salami. So only the spaghetti with tomato and bacon sauce were left. To help finish off the wine, I also got a molten lava cake for dessert—the best part of the meal (and which I could well have done without).