Padua
|
Tronco Maestro Riviera: a pedestrian walk along a section of the "inland waterway" or naviglio interno of Padua. |
The city of
Padua,
Italy, (
It. Padova IPA ['padova],
Lat. Patavium,
Vec. Padoa) is the economic and communications hub of the
Veneto region (Eng.
Venetia) in northern Italy. The capital of
Padova province, it stands on the
Bacchiglione River, 40km west of
Venice and 29km southeast of
Vicenza, with a population of 211,985 (
2004). The city is included, with
Venice (
Italian Venezia), in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area, population 1,600,000. Its agricultural setting is the
Pianura Padovana, the "Paduan plain," edged by the
Euganaean Hills praised by
Lucan and
Martial,
Petrarch,
Ugo Foscolo, and
Shelley. The city is picturesque, with a dense network of arcaded streets opening into large communal
piazze, and many bridges crossing the various branches of the
Bacchiglione, which once surrounded the ancient walls like a
moat.
Padua is the setting for most of the action in
Shakespeare's
The Taming of the Shrew.
The industry of Padua has greatly developed in modern times. Corn and saw mills, distilleries, chemical factories, breweries, candle-works, ink-works, foundries, agricultural machine and automobile works, have been established and are flourishing. The trade of the district has grown to such an extent that Padua has become the central market for the whole of Veneto.
The
Fratelli Ruffatti (
Famiglia Artigiana Fratelli Ruffatti) company is based out of Padua. Ruffatti is a pipe organ manufacturer which has installed a number of high profile insturments. One of the more famous locations in which Ruffatti have installed an organ is at the
Crystal Cathedral.
Antiquity
Padua claims to be the oldest city in north Italy; the
early medieval commune justified itself by a fabled founder in the
Trojan Antenor, whose relics the commune recognized in a large stone sarcophagus exhumed in the year
1274.
The historical Padua inhabited by
(Adriatic) Veneti thrived thanks to its excellent breed of horses and the wool of its sheep. Its men fought for the
Romans at
Cannae, and the city (a Roman
municipium since
45 BC (
query 43?)) became so powerful that it was reported able to raise two hundred thousand fighting men.
Abano nearby is the birthplace of the historian
Livy, and Padua was the native place of
Valerius Flaccus,
Asconius Pedianus and
Thrasea Paetus.
Late Antiquity
Padua, in common with north-eastern Italy, suffered severely from the invasion of the
Huns under
Attila (
452). It then passed under the
Gothic kings
Odoacer and
Theodoric the Great, but during the
Gothic War it made submission to the
Greeks in
540. The city was seized again by the Goths under
Totila, but was restored to the Eastern Empire by
Narses in
568.
The history of Padua after
Late Antiquity follows the course of events common to most cities of north-eastern Italy.
Under the
Lombards the city of Padua rose in revolt (
601) against
Agilulf, the Lombard king, and after suffering a long and bloody siege was stormed and burned by him. The Padua of Antiquity was annihilated: the remains of an amphitheater (the
Arena) and some bridge foundations are all that remain of Roman Padua today. The simple people fled to the hills and returned to eke out a living among the ruins; the ruling class abandoned the city for Laguna, according to a chronicle. The city did not easily recover from this blow, and Padua was still weak when the
Franks succeeded the Lombards as masters of north Italy.
Frankish and episcopal supremacy
At the
Diet of Aix-la-Chapelle (
828), the duchy and
march of Friuli, in which Padua lay, was divided into four counties, one of which took its title from that city.
During the period of
episcopal supremacy over the cities of northern Italy, Padua does not appear to have been either very important or very active. The general tendency of its policy throughout the
war of investitures was Imperial and not Roman; and its bishops were, for the most part, Germans.
The main event of the High Middle Ages was the sack of the city by the
Magyars in
899. Padua subsequently needed many years to recover from that ravage.
Emergence of the commune
Under the surface two important movements were taking place. At the beginning of the
11th century the citizens established a constitution, composed of a general council or legislative assembly and a
credenza or executive body, and during the next century they were engaged in wars with Venice and Vicenza for the right of water-way on the Bacchiglione and the Brenta— so that, on the one hand, the city grew in power and self-reliance, while, on the other, the great families of
Camposampiero,
Este and
Da Romano began to emerge and to divide the Paduan district among them. The citizens, in order to protect their liberties, were obliged to elect a
podestà, and after a devastating fire in
1174 that required the virtual rebuilding of the city, their choice fell first on one of the Este family.
The temporary success of the
Lombard League helped to strengthen the towns; but their ineradicable civic jealousy soon reduced them to weakness again, so that in
1236 Frederick II found little difficulty in establishing his tyrannical vicar
Ezzelino da Romano in Padua and the neighbouring cities, where he practised frightful cruelties on the inhabitants. When Ezzelino was unseated in June
1256 without civilian bloodshed, thanks to
Pope Alexander IV, Padua enjoyed a period of rest and prosperity: the university flourished; the basilica of the saint was begun; the Paduans became masters of Vicenza. But this advance brought them into dangerous proximity to
Can Grande della Scala, lord of Verona, to whom they had to yield in
1311.
As a reward for freeing the city from the Scalas,
Jacopo da Carrara was elected lord of Padua in
1318 (
query 1338?). From that date till
1405, with the exception of two years (
1388-
1390) when
Giangaleazzo Visconti held the town, nine members of the enlightened
Carraresi family succeeded one another as lords of the city. In
XIV century we have to notice the
Battle of Castagnaro (
1387), between
Giovanni Ordelaffi, for
Verona, and
John Hawkwood, for
Padova, who was the winner.
Carraresi period was a long period of restlessness, for the Carraresi were constantly at war; they were finally extinguished between the growing power of the Visconti and of Venice. Padua prospered economically, and the
university (the third in Italy) was founded in
1222, making it one of
the oldest universities in continuous operation. The center of the university is founded around a rebuilt mediaeval inn of the "Bo" (the Ox), the mid-
16th century Old Courtyard by
Andrea Moroni. In the "Room of the Forty" remains the chair of
Galileo, who taught in Padua from
1592 to
1610; the
Aula Magna, rich with coats of arms and decorations; The famous Anatomy Theatre, where
Vesalius taught through
dissections, is the oldest in the world (
1594).
The botanical garden
Orto Botanico di Padova was founded in
1545 as the garden of curative herbs attached to the University's faculty of medicine. It is the oldest botanical garden in the world and still contains an important collection of rare plants.
Venetian rule
Padua passed under Venetian rule in
1405, and so remained, with a brief interval during the wars of the
League of Cambray, till the fall of the republic in
1797. The city was governed by two Venetian nobles, a podestà for civil and a captain for military affairs; each of these was elected for sixteen months. Under these governors the great and small councils continued to discharge municipal business and to administer the Paduan law, contained in the statutes of
1276 and
1362. The treasury was managed by two chamberlains; and every five years the Paduans sent one of their nobles to reside as
nuncio in Venice, and to watch the interests of his native town.
Venice fortified Padua with new walls, built between
1513 and
1544, with a series of monumental gates.
Austrian rule
In
1797 the Venetian Republic was wiped off the map by the
Treaty of Campo Formio, and Padua was ceded to the Austrian Empire. After the fall of
Napoleon, in
1814, the city became part of the
Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia.
The Austrians were unpopular with progressive circles in northern Italy. In Padua,
the year of revolutions of 1848 saw a student revolt on
February 8 turned the University and the Caffè Pedrocchi into battlegrounds in which students and ordinary Paduans fought side by side.
In
1866 the
battle of Koniggratz gave Italy the opportunity to push the Austrians out of the old Venetian republic as Padua and the rest of the
Veneto were annexed to the recently united
Kingdom of Italy.
|
Palazzo della Ragione by night. |
|
The Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua. |
|
The Basilica of St. Justina, facing the great piazza of Prato della Valle. |
|
The apse area of Santa Sofia. |
*The
Palazzo della Ragione, with its great hall on the upper floor, is reputed to have the largest roof unsupported by columns in Europe; the hall is nearly rectangular, its length 815 m, its breadth 27 m, and its height 24 m; the walls are covered with
allegorical frescoes; the building stands upon arches, and the upper storey is surrounded by an open loggia, not unlike that which surrounds the basilica of
Vicenza. The Palazzo was begun in
1172 and finished in
1219; in
1306 Fra Giovanni, an Augustinian friar, covered the whole with one roof; originally there were three roofs, spanning the three chambers into which the hall was at first divided; the internal partition walls remained till the fire of
1420, when the Venetian architects who undertook the restoration removed them, throwing all three spaces into one and forming the present great hall, the
Salone. The new space was refrescoed by Nicolo' Miretto and Stefano da Ferrara, working from
1425 to
1440.
*In the Piazza dei Signori is the beautiful loggia called the
Gran Guardia, (
1493 -
1526), and close by is the
Palazzo del Capitanio, the residence of the Venetian governors, with its great door, the work of
Giovanni Maria Falconetto, the Veronese architect-sculptor who introduced
Renaissance architecture to Padua and who completed the door in
1532. Falconetto was the architect of
Alvise Cornaro's garden loggia, (
Loggia Cornaro), the first fully Renaissance building in Padua [
1]. Nearby, the
Cathedral, remodelled in 1552 after a design of
Michelangelo, contains works by Nicolò Semitecolo,
Francesco Bassano and Giorgio Schiavone. The nearby Baptistry, consecrated in
1281, houses the most important frescoes cycle by
Giusto de' Menabuoi.
*The most famous of the Paduan churches is the
basilica dedicated to
Saint Anthony of Padua, locally simply known as "Il Santo". The bones of the saint rest in a chapel richly ornamented with carved marbles, the work of various artists, among them of
Sansovino and Falconetto; the basilica was begun about the year
1230 and completed in the following century; tradition says that the building was designed by
Nicola Pisano; it is covered by seven cupolas, two of them pyramidal. On the piazza in front of the church is
Donatello's magnificent
equestrian statue of the Venetian general "Gattamelata" (
Erasmo da Narni), which was cast in
1453, the first full-size
equestrian bronze cast since antiquity; it was inspired by the
Marcus Aurelius equestrian sculpture at the
Capitoline Hill in
Rome.
*Not far from the Gattamelata statue are the
St. George Oratory (13th century), with frescoes by
Altichiero, and the
Scuola di S. Antonio (16th century), with frescoes by
Titian.
*One of the best known symbols of Padua is the
Prato della Valle, a 90,000 m² elliptical square believed to be the biggest in Europe, after Red Square in Moscow. In the centre is a wide garden surrounded by a ditch, which is lined by 78 statues portraying famous citizens. Not far are the abbey and the basilica of
Santa Giustina, which home to important art works, including the
Martyrdom of St. Justine by
Paolo Veronese. The complex was founded in the
5th century on the tomb of the namesake saint, and in the 15th century became one of the most important monasteries in the are, until it was suppressed by Napoleon in
1810. In
1919 it was reopened. The tombs of several saints are housed in the interior, including those of Justine, St. Prosdocimus, St. Maximus, St. Urius, St. Felicita, St. Julianus, as well as relics of the Apostle St. Matthias and the Evangelist
St. Luke.
*The
Church of the Eremitani is an Augustinian church of the
13th century, distinguished as containing the tombs of Jacopo (
1324) and Ubertino (
1345) da Carrara, lords of Padua, and for the chapel of SS James and Christopher, formerly illustrated by
Mantegna's frescoes, largely destroyed by the Allies in
World War II, because it was housing a German headquarter. The old monastery of the church now houses the municipal art gallery. Close by the Eremitani, in the site of an old Roman arena, is the small
Scrovegni Chapel, Padua's most eminent attraction, whose inner walls are entirely covered with paintings by
Giotto.
*
Santa Sofia is probabaly Padova's most ancient church, the crpyt being initiated in the late 10th century by Venetian craftsmen. It has a basilica plan with Romanesque-Gothic interior and Byzantine elements. The apse was built in the 12th century. The edifice appears slightly tiliting due to the soft terrain.
In the neighbourhood of Padua are numerous noble villas. These include:
*
Villa Molin, in the Mandria fraction, designed by
Vincenzo Scamozzi in
1597.
*Villa Pacchierotti-Trieste (17th century), at Limena
*VIlla Cittadella-Vigodarzere (19th century), at Saonara
*Villa Selvatico da Porto (15th-18th century), at
Vigonza*Villa Loredan, at Sant'Urbano.
The most important is howevere
Villa Contarini, at Piazzola sul Brenta, built in 1546 by
Palladio and enlarged in the following centuries.
Padua has long been famous for its
university, founded in
1222. Under the rule of Venice the university was governed by a board of three patricians, called the
Riformatori dello Studio di Padova. The list of professors and alumni is long and illustrious, containing, among others, the names of
Bembo,
Sperone Speroni, the anatomist
Vesalius,
Fallopius, Fabrizio d'Acquapendente,
Galileo Galilei,
Pietro Pomponazzi,
Reginald, later Cardinal Pole,
Scaliger,
Tasso and
Sobieski. The university hosts the oldest anatomy theatre
1594 and the oldest botanical garden
1545 in the world.
The place of Padua in the history of art is nearly as important as its place in the history of learning. The presence of the university attracted many distinguished artists, as Giotto,
Fra Filippo Lippi and
Donatello; and for native art there was the school of
Francesco Squarcione, whence issued the great
Mantegna.
The commerce and jobs attract many immigrants into the city. Many of the labourers are those of
eastern European origin, and
North African origin.
The racial makeup of the city is 94.5%
Italian, 1.3%
Romanian, 0.5%
Albanian, and 0.5%
Moldovan. Other ethnicities include very small numbers of Filipinos, Croatians, Serbs, and Moroccans.
It is the home of
Calcio Padova, a soccer team that plays in Italy's Serie C1 division. It is also the home of the
Petrarca Padova rugby union team. Also a
volleyball club with the same name plays for the Italian first division.
* -
Nancy,
France, since
1964* -
Freiburg,
Germany, since
1967* -
Boston,
United States, since
1983* -
Handan,
People's Republic of China, since
1988* -
Iaşi,
Romania, since
1995* -
Beria,
Mozambique, since
1995* -
Coimbra,
Portugal, since
1998* -
Cagliari,
Italy, since
2002* -
Zadar,
Croatia, since
2003*
*
Lorenzo Tomasin, Testi padovani del Trecento, Padua, 2004.
*
City of Padua Official Website*
The Basilica of St Anthony in Padua*
University Of Padova*
Anatomical Theater at the university of Padua*
University Botanical Garden*
Padova as a city protected by UNESCO*
IFED*
Map of Padua
