Terenzo

Terenzo stands at 540 metres at the foot of Monte Croce, between the val Baganza and the val di Taro, and the village sits on an old landslide that settled over time: one of the proposed etymologies derives it from the Latin terere, to grind and wear away, that is from the crumbling nature of the ground. What might be a detail is in fact its history: in 1294 a catastrophic slide swept away and destroyed almost the whole village, which was then rebuilt. The first certain mention is of 11 June 948, when Lothair II, king of Italy, granted the court of Trevuntio to count Maginfredo; the via di Monte Bardone passed through here, carrying northern European pilgrims to Rome all through the Middle Ages.

In 1333 king John of Bohemia stopped here with his son Charles, and that night, on the eve of the Assumption, the young man had a terrible premonitory dream. Once emperor, in 1355 Charles IV remembered it: he had a chapel dedicated to Santa Maria degli Angeli built at Terenzo, and the following year he took the fief away from Parma, placed it directly under the Empire and exempted its people from all taxation. The village was later burned by imperial troops in 1552 — only the church, the friars' house and the inn survived — and when Napoleon had the new Cisa road laid higher up the slope, it was left aside. Its present name is recent: the comune was called Lesignano Palmia and was renamed Terenzo by a decree of 1924.