Lesignano de' Bagni

The Romans were the first to notice the sulphurous-saline springs and to take the water for cures; the baths were destroyed in the reign of Odoacer, and only in the 11th century did people begin to use them again. In 1474 count Pier Maria II de' Rossi had the old well restored and a building for the cures put up, and to make the place known he commissioned the physician Pietro da Lesignano to write a treatise on the waters of Lesignano. In 1837 the comune added de' Bagni to its name, for that vocation. The spa closed in 1931 for want of visitors: the name has outlived it. As for Lesignano, the toponym comes from the gens Licinia with the suffix -anus, by way of the medieval Lisiniano, which appears in 1094 in a deed of sale.

Between the hamlet of Rivalta and the Torre district of Traversetolo, at about 350 metres, lies the park of the Barboj: the name comes from the burbling that goes with the methane rising out of the ground through small mud volcanoes, and salty muds run from the pools into the rio dei Barboj. In 1539 Giulio Cesare de' Rossi, count of Caiazzo, carried off and married Maddalena Sanseverino, heiress of the fief of Colorno; pope Paul III, who as lord of Parma could do it, confiscated his lands in the Parma country, had the castle of Lesignano razed and gave the fief to a nephew of his own. The church of San Michele Arcangelo, named from 1230, has done nothing since but be rebuilt: nearly razed in 1405, raised again in 1474, damaged by the earthquakes of 1818, 1832, 1983 and 2008, and restored once more between 2010 and 2014. It keeps its 12th-century side portal, two mutilated stylophore lions and a bronze bell of 1363.