History Of Padua
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History Of Padua
Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of 207,694 as of 2025. It is also the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE) which has a population of around 2,600,000. Besides the Bacchiglione, the Brenta River, which once ran through the city, still touches the northern districts. Its agricultural setting is the Venetian Plain. To the city's south west lies the Euganaean Hills, which feature in poems by Lucan, Martial, Petrarch, Ugo Foscolo, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Padua has two UNESCO World Heritage List entries: its Botanical Garden, which is the world's oldest, and its 14th-century frescoes, situated in buildings in the city centre. An example is the Scrovegni Chapel ...
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La Specola, Padua
La Specola is a 14th-century tower, formerly part of a medieval castle, and converted in 1767 into an astronomical observatory (specula) in Padua, region of Veneto, Italy. History The 13th-century ruler of Padua, Ezzelino III da Romano, had built a castle at the site; this tower had served as a dungeon. In the 14th-century during a reconstruction by Francesco I da Carrara, this tower was raised further. After its conversion to an astronomical observatory a decade before, in 1777 the tower housed a lower observatory, 16 metres above ground level, and an upper observatory at a height of 35 metres. The entrance has an inscription by Abbé Toaldo added in 1771, reflecting on the changed uses of the site:1242 / This tower, which once led to infernal shadows/ now, under the auspices of the Venetians, opens the way to the stars / 1767 The lower observatory was named the Sala Meridiana; noon was measured on the meridian line sunk in the floor. The upper observatory has walls of eight me ...
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Comune
A (; : , ) is an administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions () and provinces (). The can also have the City status in Italy, title of (). Formed according to the principles consolidated in Medieval commune, medieval municipalities, the is provided for by article 114 of the Constitution of Italy. It can be divided into , which in turn may have limited power due to special elective assemblies. In the autonomous region of the Aosta Valley, a is officially called a in French. Overview The provides essential public services: Civil registry, registry of births and deaths, registry of deeds, and maintenance of local roads and public works. Many have a (), which is responsible for public order duties. The also deal with the definition and compliance with the (), a document that regulates the building activity within the communal area. All communal structures ...
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Petrarch
Francis Petrarch (; 20 July 1304 – 19 July 1374; ; modern ), born Francesco di Petracco, was a scholar from Arezzo and poet of the early Italian Renaissance, as well as one of the earliest Renaissance humanism, humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Italian Renaissance and the founding of Renaissance humanism. In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri. Petrarch was later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the . Petrarch's sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the "Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages".
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Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman and Celtiberian poet born in Bilbilis, Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of '' Epigrams'', published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan. In these poems he satirises city life and the scandalous activities of his acquaintances, and romanticises his provincial upbringing. He wrote a total of 1,561 epigrams, of which 1,235 are in elegiac couplets. Martial has been called the greatest Latin epigrammatist, and is considered the creator of the modern epigram. He also coined the term plagiarism. Early life Knowledge of his origins and early life are derived almost entirely from his works, which can be more or less dated according to the well-known events to which they refer. In Book X of his ''Epigrams'', composed between 95 and 98, he mentions celebrating his fifty-sevent ...
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Lucan
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (3 November AD 39 – 30 April AD 65), better known in English as Lucan (), was a Roman poet, born in Corduba, Hispania Baetica (present-day Córdoba, Spain). He is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial Latin period, known in particular for his epic ''Pharsalia''. His youth and speed of composition set him apart from other poets. Life Three brief ancient accounts allow for the reconstruction of a modest biography – the earliest attributed to Suetonius, another to an otherwise unknown Vacca, and the third anonymous and undated – along with references in Martial, Cassius Dio, Tacitus's ''Annals'', and one of Statius's ''Silvae''. Lucan was born in the Roman colony of Corduba into a wealthy family of central Italic origins; he was the son of and grandson of Seneca the Elder. He grew up under the tutelage of his uncle Seneca the Younger. He studied rhetoric at Athens and was probably provided with a philosophical and Stoic educati ...
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Euganean Hills
The Euganean Hills ( ) are a group of hills of volcanic origin that rise to heights of 300 to 600 m from the Padovan-Venetian plain a few km south of Padua. The ''Colli Euganei'' form the first Regional park established in the Veneto (1989), enclosing fifteen towns and eighty one hills. History The name memorializes that of the Euganei, an ancient people who inhabited the region upon contact with the Romans. The Euganean Hills were formed in a sub-marine outwelling of basaltic lava during the Eocene, which was followed in the Oligocene by an episode of activity characterized by viscous magma, which formed deposits of trachyte. The Euganean Hills, just visible from Venice, have been celebrated for their picturesque beauty and their hot springs. In the Euganean Hills, at Arquà, Petrarch found peace and harmony towards the end of his life, and the town now bears his name attached to it. He discovered the village in 1369; there, he stated in his letter to posterity, "I have bui ...
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Venetian Plain
The Venetian Plain, or Venetian-Friulian Plain ( or ) is a major geographical feature of Italy. It extends approximately from the River Adige to the River Isonzo, in a southwest-to-northeast direction, including almost all the flatlands of Veneto and Friuli. It is not properly related to the Po River basin, but it is often considered as part of the Po Valley since the flatlands of Veneto and Friuli do not drain into the Po, but they effectively combine into an unbroken plain. Sometimes, instead of the River Adige, the Euganei Hills and Berici Hills are considered to be its western border. See also *Friuli *Po Valley * Triveneto *Veneto Veneto, officially the Region of Veneto, is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the Northeast Italy, north-east of the country. It is the fourth most populous region in Italy, with a population of 4,851,851 as of 2025. Venice is t ... {{Italy-geo-stub Plains of Italy Friuli Landforms of Veneto ...
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Brenta River
The Brenta is an Italian river that runs from Trentino to the Adriatic Sea just south of the Venetian lagoon in the Veneto region, in the north-east of Italy. During the Roman era, it was called Medoacus (Ancient Greek: ''Mediochos'', ''Μηδειοχος'') and near Padua it divided in two branches, Medoacus Maior (Greater Medoacus) and Medoacus Minor (Lesser Medoacus). The river changed its course in the early Middle Ages, and its former bed through Padua was occupied by the Bacchiglione. It is long and was first channelled in the 16th century when a long canal was built from the village of Stra to the Adriatic Sea, bypassing the Venetian lagoon. A branch of the Brenta, named '' Naviglio del Brenta'', was left to connect directly Venice and Padua (which was a kind of second capital of the Venice Republic). It runs through Stra, Fiesso d'Artico, Dolo, Mira, Oriago and Malcontenta to Fusina (which is part of the comune of Venice). Starting in the 16th century, many ...
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Treviso
Treviso ( ; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 87.322 inhabitants (as of December 2024). Some 3,000 live within the Venetian walls () or in the historical and monumental center; some 80,000 live in the urban center while the city hinterland has a population of approximately 170,000. The province is home to the headquarters of clothing retailer Benetton Group, Benetton, Sisley, Stefanel, Geox, Diadora and Lotto Sport Italia, appliance maker De'Longhi, and bicycle maker Pinarello. Treviso is also known for being the original production area of Prosecco wine and radicchio, and is thought to have been the origin of the popular Italian dessert tiramisù. Names and etymology The first mention of Treviso, albeit indirect, can be found in the third book of the Natural History (Pliny), Naturalis historia by Pliny the Elder, where the «Fluvius Silis ex montibus Tarvisani ...
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Vicenza
Vicenza ( , ; or , archaically ) is a city in northeastern Italy. It is in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, where it straddles the Bacchiglione, River Bacchiglione. Vicenza is approximately west of Venice and east of Milan. Vicenza is a thriving and cosmopolitan city, with a rich history and culture, and many museums, art galleries, piazzas, villas, churches and elegant Renaissance ''Palazzo, palazzi''. With the Palladian villas of the Veneto in the surrounding area, and his renowned Teatro Olimpico ("Olympic Theater"), the "city of Palladio" has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1994. Vicenza had an estimated population of 115,927 and a metropolitan area of 270,000 in 2008. Vicenza is the third-largest Italian industrial centre as measured by the value of its exports, and is one of the country's wealthiest cities, in large part due to its textile and steel industries, which employ tens of thousands of people. Additionally, abou ...
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Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are linked by 438 bridges. The islands are in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay lying between the mouths of the Po River, Po and the Piave River, Piave rivers (more exactly between the Brenta (river), Brenta and the Sile (river), Sile). As of 2025, 249,466 people resided in greater Venice or the Comune of Venice, of whom about 51,000 live in the historical island city of Venice (''centro storico'') and the rest on the mainland (''terraferma''). Together with the cities of Padua, Italy, Padua and Treviso, Italy, Treviso, Venice is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), which is considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million. The name is derived from the ancient Adr ...
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