Padua

Town in Veneto, northern Italy, on the canalized section of the River Bacchiglione, 38 km/24 mi west of Venice; population (2001 est) 203,400. Industries include engineering, and the manufacture of clothing, bicycles, leather goods, and man-made fibres. The astronomer Galileo taught at the university, founded in 1222.

Features include the 13th-century Palazzo della Ragione, the basilica of S Antonio, and the botanical gardens, laid out in 1545. Padua is the birthplace of the Roman historian Livy and the painter Andrea Mantegna.

History Called Patavium by the Romans, it was second to Rome in wealth. The town was sacked in the early 5th century by Alaric, king of the Visigoths; and in 452 by Attila, king of the Huns. It was destroyed by the Lombards in 601, but recovered quickly. From the 12th to the 14th century, Padua was an independent commune of great economic and political importance, especially after 1318, when it came under the rule of the Carrara family. It was taken by Venice in 1405, occupied by the French in 1797, ceded to Austria in 1814, and became part of a united Italy in 1866.

Features The cathedral (16th–18th centuries) has a baptistry dating from the 12th century. The Romanesque Gothic basilica of S Antonio, containing the tomb of the saint, dominates the town with six Byzantine domes. Its high altar has bronzes by Donatello, whose equestrian statue of Gattamelata stands in the piazza outside. In the Scrovegni Chapel are 39 frescoes by Giotto, and in the church of the Eremitani (restored after bomb damage in World War II) there are fragments of frescoes by Mantegna. Other notable buildings include the 16th-century, eight-domed church of S Giustina; and the neoclassical Caffè Pedrocchi (1831), formerly a salon frequented by intellectuals, now a cultural and conference centre. Padua also has a library (1629) and a civic museum housing archaeological remains, coins, and Venetian and Flemish paintings of the 15th to 18th centuries.

Padua

Province of northeast Italy in southeast Veneto region; capital Padua; area 2,142 sq km/827 sq mi; population (2000 est) 849,600.