Pellegrino Parmense is located in the Ceno Valley in the hills of Parma. The first written documents testify to
the assignment of the fiefdom of Pellegrino by Emperor Ottone II to Marquis Adalberto Pallavicino, progenitor
of the lineage settled between Parma and Piacenza. Since then all local events were centered on the presence of
the castle, whose silhouette looms over the built-up area. Religious presence peculiarly marks the territory.
Evidence of the settlement of the Franciscans in Pellegrino dates back to the early 15th century, but more
generally for centuries the area represented a point of great historical-religious interest by virtue of the
presence of the important Sanctuary of Careno, an extraordinarily poetic architectural episode with its side
porticoed spaces unequivocally linked to pilgrimages.
In the center of the historic core of Pellegrino Parmense in the 15th century there also arose a Franciscan
convent with an adjoining church, later suppressed. Civil events speak of struggles for the possession of this
strategic area for the control of communication and trade routes with Liguria and Tuscany, and also as an area
of passage for pilgrimages to Rome. A fief of the Pallavicino family, then of Niccolò Piccinino, the Sforza
family, and the Meli Lupi family, Pellegrino Parmense finally entered the orbit of the Duchy of Parma and
followed its destiny.
Its castle, which dominates the valley and the town, is one of the most interesting stops on a hypothetical
itinerary among the castles of the Parma hills: built in a dominant position on a hill to control and defend
the valley, probably in 981 by Adalberto di Baden, progenitor of the Pallavicino family, to this day it is a
private residence. It can be visited by appointment. The castle is linked to the ghost called La Fata di
Pellegrino, who for a long time revealed herself exclusively to the castellans. Chronicles report that the
population of Pellegrino would gather outside the castle to see the ghost who appeared to many people all
white, posed under the mantle that covered everything: shoulders, neck and head.
