Violetta di Parma, hit of the nineteenth century

11/04/07 15:46:48

Parma is a city in Emilia-Romagna region, in the north of Italy, built before Roman Empire time, known by its architecture, the University and picturesque countryside.
Another one of its notability is the Parma violet, known as a breed since 16th century and cultivated in Grasse (in the south of France) since 1868, but it was gradually supressed by the other sort, known as Victoria. Later on, thanks to the discovery of ionone (1893) which Tiemann and Kruger had extracted directly from the Parma violet, the beginning of synthetic manufacturing began.

Fragile Parma violet can not stand cold, has sweet powdery aroma, is very demanding and almost can not be reproduced by dusted seed. Its colour is mostly violet, but there are rare sorts with lilac or even white petals.

Fine violet buds and its scent seducted Napoleon, who thought of it as his own flower. After his death in his neck medallion a few violets that he had plucked out of his beloved wife Josephine de Beauharnais grave was found. His second wife Marie Louise was the first one who distilled violet and made her personal and very own perfume.

Even before she took off to Parma as Duchess of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla (due to her parting with Napoleon, because of his deportation to Elba), Marie Louise had written from Wienna to her lady in wait in Paris demanding of her to purchase few Parma violets with detailed explanation how it should be cultivated for flowers.

Arriving at Parma, Marie Louise personally controlled selection of the Parma violet in the Botanical garden. Light violet, the colour of the flower, became her own favorite. Along with the nuns from Annunciata monastery she tend to produce the essence from the flowers and the leaves of the violet, and she succeeded in distillating it. Perfume made that way Marie Louise used as her personal fragrance and the monks kept its formula secret.

Marie Louise died in 1847. Later on (1870) adventurous barber Lodovico Borsari found out the secret formula from the monks and soon enough the world met and embraced the fragrance Violeta di Parma, which we can even sense nowadays.

Violeta di Parma is the scent of the violet, naturally sweet and lightly powdery. It can seem too simple in the surroundings of the modern, sophisticated perfumes. But its natural modesty is its undoubted virtue for everyone who appreciates the scents of nature and for every person who is curious enough to find out what the scents of the late centuries had been.
The perfume Violeta di Parma can be found in the Internet store PerfumeEmporium.com