Città di Padova

• Basilica di Sant'Antonio - Il Santo
• Duomo e Battistero
• l'ex Ghetto Ebraico
• Chiesa di Santa Sofia
• Chiesa degli Eremitani, musei agli Eremitani e Cappella degli Scrovegni
• Arena romana e Cappella degli Scrovegni - panoramica
• l'Orto Botanico universitario

• facce e personaggi
• torri e lanterne
• finestre e balconi
• neve
• dettagli vari, details
• festeggiamenti di laurea davanti al Bo
• sequenza - immagini di alcuni monumenti

• le cinquecentesche mura veneziane
• le cinquecentesche porte veneziane
• il Bastione Impossibile - panoramica

• Prato della Valle
• panoramica sul Prato della Valle
• panoramica sul Prato della Valle (1)
• panoramica sul Prato della Valle (2)
• panoramica sul Prato della Valle (3)
• Basilica di Santa Giustina
• notabili in Prato della Valle (1)
• notabili in Prato della Valle (2)
• sequenza - statue in Prato della Valle

• Palazzo della Ragione
• panoramica sul Duomo ed il Battistero
• Piazza dei Signori, torre dell'Orologio e Reggia Carrarese
• il caffè Pedrocchi
• Torlonga, Castelvecchio o Castello di Ezzelino
• Chiesetta campestre di Pozzoveggiani
• Scuola della Carità di via San Francesco

• Padova città d'acque
• lungo il Canale Scaricatore - panoramica
• lungo il Canale San Gregorio - panoramica
• voga alla veneta sul Piovego, Portello, Porte Contarine - foto (1)
• ciclovia Valsugana-Brenta : Trento, Bassano, Padova, Venezia

• cronache Ezzeliniane: la storia degli Ezzelini dal 1000 al 1260
• cronache Carraresi: la Padova del '300
• Lega di Cambrai e guerra anti-veneziana

• musei Padova città
• chiese Padova città
• Informazione Accoglienza Turistica provincia di Padova
• Enti della provincia di Padova
• Associazioni della provincia di Padova

Padova tra storia e leggenda - Padova città d'arte e di tradizioni mitologiche

Padua between history and legend Padua is a city characterized by a complex town planning, that is the result of 2500 years of history, in which the city has had a leading role and it preserves some world-famous works of art: from the traces of the Roman Age splendor, to the masterpieces of the Middle Ages, as Giotto's frescos in the 'Scrovegni Chapel', the 'Palazzo della Ragione', the Basilica of S. Antonio, to the sanguinary fights between medieval soldiers, to the Venetian epic. From 1400 to the decline of the 'Serenissima', with the arrival of Napoleon, Padua is the most important city of the Venetian dry land. The 'Dominante' leaves a really important urban mark in today's town conformation, especially thanks to the construction of the sixteenth-century walls, built to defend the city from the 'Imperiali' of the Cambrai league (this is one of the most difficult pages in the millenarian history of the Venetian Republic). Furthermore some important buildings and palaces are built, such as Santa Giustina Basilica and the seventeenth-century arrangement of a vast, marshy area of Prato della Valle, formerly place of the Roman theatre. Padua boasts remote origins as a fluvial town. An old legend, not scientifically confirmed, says that the city was founded by Antenore, an Homeric hero, who was escaping from Troy, committed to the flames. Archeological testimonies show the existence, approximately in the XII century b.C., of an urban settlement in a marshy area, formed because of the presence of the Brenta river, called at that time 'Medoacus'. The same place name 'Patavium', (Padua), would be referred to Padus and it would show a close relation between the Palaeo-Venetian settlement and the fluvial waters. And still today Antenore square preserves the founder's mortal remains, near the arches of one of the Roman bridges, now covered with earth, that crossed the Naviglio inside the town: the most important waterway that joined Padua to the Lagoon. Already in the III century B.C., thanks to its ideal position, protected by the water, Padua defeats the Galli Cisalpini and becomes a precious Roman ally. Around 50 B.C., it has its own administrative autonomy because first it acquires the Roman jus status and then the Municipium status through a Caesar decree. The prosperity and the peace reached, permit a development of the town planning and an attempt to regulate the fluvial waters through the construction of Roman bridges. So Padua seems to be an 'island', that has natural fortifications (the river's loops), connected to the country thanks to the network of Roman roads and to the sea thanks to the shipways. The most important Roman constructions are the theatre, that determines the today's circular conformation of 'Prato della Valle' and the amphitheatre: some traces of it are in Corso del Popolo and the Scrovegni Chapel is inside it. Nevertheless only few architectural testimonies of this age remain because of the use to demolish the old constructions in order to obtain the stones to build the new ones. Thanks to the Roman intervention (II-I century b.C.) the town becomes one of the most important junction of the North of Italy: the Aemilia road joins Padua to Aquileia, the Aemilia-Gallica road to Vicenza and then to Genova, the Annia road to the important port of Adria. During the first centuries of Christianity Padua is one of the most important cities of the Empire, only second to Rome in richness and beauty, but from the III-IV century it starts declining because of the frequent invasions Barbarian people: first Visigoti, Svevi and Vandali and then Unni and Longobardi. In 589 a dramatic event happens: the Brenta river, that hadn't received during the previous century any hydraulic repairs, overflows and causes a lot of terrible floods. The river deviates to the North and the Bacchiglione occupies its place. The recovery is quite slow and difficult, only in the XII century, Padua becomes a free municipality and starts imposing its supremacy and its own cultural model to the rural area and to the near towns again. The urban-territorial recovery is possible thanks to the Benedictine monks, in fact from the VIII century, they start a widespread reclamation from Padua to the Pedemontana. Their work is the following: they find a place for a new monastery and they build it, then they build some watermills along the rivers and in this way it starts the reclamation. Thanks to the monks, there is the recovery of the 'Roman Centuriazione' (a system to divide the territory), and there is the diffusion of a new type of rural building, based on the model of the Benedictine monastery. Around 1200, Padua finds again its economic wealth and starts a period characterized by a huge cultural fervor: there is the construction of the first medieval walls, the 'Basilica del Santo', built to house the mortal remains of Franciscan friar, now the most famous Saint in the world, and the 'Palazzo della Ragione', then there is the foundation of a prestigious University. Always in this period there are some bitter quarrels with Imperial Vicar, the terrible and ill-famed Ezzelino III da Romano, the tyrant, son-in-low of the Emperor Federico II, one of the leading figure in the medieval history. The artistic scene is dominated by a prestigious figure: the Florentine Giotto, who promoted a revolution in painting. He paints in fresco the Scrovegni Chapel, one of the cornerstone of the world painting. The political power height arrives between 1338 and 1404, with the Carraresi domination. In those years also Francesco Petrarca is in Padua and he owns a house in the countryside, in Arquà, in the southern part of the Euganei hills. In 1405 there is a lull because a popular revolution causes the passage of Padua to the Venetian Republic. But Padua maintains its artistic supremacy thanks to two big Masters: Andrea Mantegna, who paints the Ovetari Chapel in the Eremitani Church, and Donatello, who creates the equestrian monument dedicated to Gattamelata, that belongs to the sculptural cycle of the high altar in the Basilica del Santo. The fifteenth century is characterized by a huge splendour for the Venetian town. It was under the Venetian domination, (in conflict with the Empire, the Papacy and France) that Padua erects a new system of fortifications 11 km long. It is a big project, realized feverishly, created with the objective to make the city impregnable to the attacks of the military artillery, especially that of the Cambrai League. In 1509 there is one of the most difficult moment and Venice was almost defeated. But there won't be wars anymore and those walls will be the final urban structure. In 1545 the botanical gardens are founded. They are the oldest in Europe, created to fulfill scientific purposes, in which a lot of herbs are collected and classified. At the end of the century the university has its enlightened period thanks to the genius of Galileo Galilei and it is built the famous Anatomic Theatre. It's important to remember the reconstruction, never finished, of the Basilica of Santa Giustina, on the medieval structures destroyed by an earthquake, one of the most beautiful examples of the Renaissance architectural conceptions. In the seventeenth century there is the definitive arrangement of Prato della Valle. After a first intervention of reclamation of the marshy area, Andrea Memmo, the Venetian attorney, thinks at a grandiose project: a big open space where the shops for the fair could be placed and where there could be the horse races. So there is the realization of a green area, the so-called 'Memmia Island', joined to the square through four majestic bridges, entirely surrounded by statues, the most representing Venetian attorneys, who gave a contribute to the history of the city. The Venetian capitulation in 1798, after the first Napoleonic campaign in Italy, leads Padua under the French domination and then under the Austrian one. The city becomes the theatre of sacks, incursions and devastations of the foreign armies. The arrangement of the road network and of some important urban junctions (thanks to the architect Giuseppe Jappelli, who created the famous 'Caffè Pedrocchi' and nominated municipal engineer) is the only positive sign of those years. The domination ends only in 1866, with the annexation to the Reign of Italy. The recent years of the history of Padua are characterized by a big changement of the fabric of the city; because of the bellic destructions, the Eremitani Church was almost destroyed and a masterpiece of Andrea Mantegna was almost entirely lost (it is considered the biggest loss in the artistic field of the second world war), furthermore there have been some interventions to split entire quarters in order to create some space to build the modern skyscrapers (for example 'Piazzetta Conciapelli'). The city looses its features of fluvial town (as Venice, Chioggia and Treviso) because some fluvial channels were covered with earth, and Padua gives more space at the civilisation (or maybe the barbarity) of cars and of the big anonymous quarters.