Ugolino de' Rossi

Ugolino de' Rossi (c. 1300–1377) was bishop of Parma for fifty-four years, longer than anyone before or after him. The Rossi, now the city's masters, had the legate name him bishop; Pope John XXII ratified it in June 1323, when Ugolino held only minor orders.

He was caught between his brothers' politics and the papacy: he fled to Corniglio when Louis IV showed interest in Parma in 1329, and to Avignon when the Scaligers took it in 1334.

Back in 1341, he found his castles ruined and borrowed more than ten thousand gold florins from his brother Rolando. Unable to repay, he ceded chapter lands to his nephews. The Visconti, now lords of Parma, later called him to Milan, where he died on 28 April 1377, a friend and admirer of Petrarch.