Duchy of Parma
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The Duchy of Parma was created in 1545 from that part of the Duchy of Milan south of the Po River, as a fief for Pope Paul III's illegitimate son, Pier Luigi Farnese, centered on the city of Parma.
In 1556, the second Duke, Ottavio Farnese, was given the city of Piacenza, becoming thus also Duke of Piacenza, and so the state was thereafter properly known as the Duchies of Parma and Piacenza.
The Farnese family continued to rule until their extinction in 1731, at which point the duchy was inherited by the young son of the King of Spain, Don Charles, whose mother Elizabeth Farnese was the Farnese heiress. He ruled until the end of the War of the Polish Succession in 1735, when Parma was ceded to Emperor Charles VI in exchange for the Two Sicilies.
The Habsburgs only ruled until the conclusion of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, when it was ceded back to the Bourbons in the person of Don Philip, Don Charles's younger brother. As duke Philip, he became the founder of the House of Bourbon-Parma.
In 1796, the duchy was occupied by French troops under Napoleon Bonaparte. In the Treaty of Aranjuez of 1801, duke Ferdinand formally agreed to cede the duchy to Napoleon. The territories were integrated into the Cisalpine Republic until 1802, the Italian Republic, from 1802 until 1805, and the Kingdom of Italy, from 1805 until 1808, until in 1808 the French Empire annexed them and formed out of them the Département of Taro.
In 1814, the duchies were restored under Napoleon's Habsburg wife, Marie Louise, who was to rule them for her lifetime. The duchy was renamed duchy of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, the name that it retained until the end.
After Marie Louise's death in 1847, the Duchy was restored to the Bourbon-Parma line, which had been ruling the tiny duchy of Lucca. The Bourbons ruled until 1859, when they were driven out by a revolution following the Sardinian victory in their war against Austria.
The duchies of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla and the duchy of Lucca joined with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the duchy of Modena to form the United Provinces of Central Italy in December 1859, and were annexed to the Kingdom of Sardinia in march of 1860.
The House of Bourbon continues to claim the title of duke of Parma to this day. Carlos-Hugo (Carlist pretender to the Spanish throne in the 1970s) has held the title since 1977.
