Once, pelota was played in the courtyards of this austere palace built under the orders of the Farnese between 1583 and 1622. Today the building houses the archaeological museum and the National Gallery, the Palatine library, the Farnese theatre and the Museo Bodoniano, named after Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813), the printer who made Parma the capital of the printing industry in the 18C.