PARMA AND PIACENZA, DUCHY OF

the northern Italian cities of Parma and Piacenza, with their dependent territories, detached from the Papal States by Pope Paul III in 1545 and made a hereditary duchy for his son, Pier Luigi Farnese (died 1547). It was retained by the Farnese family until the family's extinction in 1731, when it passed to the Spanish Bourbons in the person of Don Carlos (the future Charles III of Spain). Except for one brief interruption, the Spanish Bourbons controlled the duchy until 1808, when it was formally annexed to France as the dpartement of Taro. In 1814 the Congress of Vienna gave the duchy to Napoleon's consort, Marie-Louise. With her death, in 1847, Parma and Piacenza were restored to the Bourbons, whose reign was periodically troubled by revolution and assassination. Louise of Bourbon-Berry, regent for her infant son Robert, transferred her powers to a provisional government on June 9, 1859, which paved the way for the annexation of Parma and Piacenza to Piedmont-Sardinia in March 1860. Piedmont-Sardinia became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.