Parco Ducale, Public garden in Parma, Italy

Parco Ducale is a large garden in Parma featuring tree-lined paths, open lawns, and water features arranged throughout the grounds. The layout includes different sections connected by walkways, with a notable central area and surrounding wooded zones.

Ottavio Farnese began the park in 1561 around his new villa, built on the site of Bernabò Visconti's fourteenth-century Castello della Ghiara, keeping only the Palazzetto Eucherio Sanvitale. After Farnese decline and the felling of the trees in 1745, Filippo di Borbone had Guillaume du Tillot and architect Ennemond Alexandre Petitot remake it as a French-inspired neoclassical garden, with Carrara marble statues and vases carved by Jean-Baptiste Boudard. Maria Luigia later added the plane trees of the piazza ad étoile, and the park passed to the city after Italian unification.

This green space serves as a gathering place for local residents who walk, play, and rest among the trees throughout the day. It reflects how Parma's past grandeur blends with modern everyday life.

The park lies in the Oltretorrente district by the Parma stream, and its paths total 3.2 km, with a perimeter boulevard of about 1.8 km. Seven avenues radiate from the étoile square in front of the Palazzo del Giardino, six of them lined with horse chestnuts. The central boulevard runs straight to the large pond.

The Fontana del Trianon on the island in the great fishpond was made between 1712 and 1719 by Giuliano Mozzani for the garden of the Reggia di Colorno. It was moved here in 1920, the same year Giuseppe Carmignani reorganised the park and the Silenus group was placed at the centre of the étoile.