Azzo da Correggio was an Italian condottiere and captain of fortune who lived in the fourteenth century.
He was born from Giberto III from Correggio called Il Difensore, and from one from Camino di Verona. Initiated as an ecclesiastical career, he left her to deal with politics, trying to remove the control of Parma from the Rossi family. In 1335 he succeeded in his intent with the support of the Della Scala of Verona, to which he left the lordship. The following year the Della Scala sent him to Avignon by Pope Benedict XII to see his interests protected to the detriment of his rival Rossi family. Here he met and became friends with Francesco Petrarca, who probably helped him to plead the case before the Pope.
In 1337 the fortress of Colorno was built for defensive purposes, on whose ruins the Palazzo Ducale di Colorno was built in the early eighteenth century. In 1340 he married Tommasina Gonzaga, daughter of Guido Gonzaga, and the following year he took Parma (next to him Petrarch was present) to Mastino della Scala, ruling it until 1344, when he ceded Parma to the lord of Ferrara Obizzo III d ' Este, who in turn sold it to the lord of Milan Luchino Visconti in 1346.
Later he went back to the Scaligeri and the lords of Ferrara, but in 1347 he allied with the Visconti, hoping to regain control of Parma. He died in Milan in the summer of 1362, while he was a guest of Bernabò Visconti.
During the period in which he was lord of Parma, Azzo hosted Petrarca several times in the city and in the summer residence of Selvapiana (now part of the municipality of Canossa). Petrarch dedicated a song to him and some writings, including the Latin treatise De remediis utriusque fortunae.