Padua ( PAD-ew-ə; Italian: Padova [ˈpaːdova] ⓘ; Venetian: Pàdova, Pàdoa or Pàoa) is a city and comune (municipality) in the autonomous region of Veneto in northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Venice and 29 km (18 miles) southeast of Vicenza. With a population of 208,202 as of 2026, Padua is the 3rd-largest city in Veneto. 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 such as the Scrovegni Chapel.
Padua is home to one of the oldest universities in the world, the University of Padua, founded in 1222, where Galileo Galilei and Nicolaus Copernicus taught or studied. In 1610, Galileo observed the moons of Jupiter through a homemade telescope in Padua, marking the second phase of the Copernican Revolution. Today, the university has around 72,000 students and has a profound impact on the city's recreational, artistic and economic activities.
Etymology
The original significance of the Roman name Patavium (Venetian: Padoa) is uncertain. It may be connected with Padus, the ancient name of the Po river. In addition, the Indo-European root pat- may refer to a wide open plain as opposed to nearby hills; in Latin, this root is present in the word patera ("plate") and the verb patere ("to open"). The suffix -av (also found in names of rivers such as Timavus and Tiliaventum) is likely of Venetic origin, precisely indicating the presence of a river, which in the case of Padua is the Brenta. The ending -ium signifies the presence of villages that have united themselves together. According to another theory, Patavium probably derives from Gaulish padi ("pine"), in reference to the pine forests thereabouts.
History
Antiquity
Padua claims to be among the oldest cities in northern Italy. According to a tradition dated at least to the time of Virgil's Aeneid and to Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, Padua was founded around 1183 BC by the Trojan prince Antenor. After the Fall of Troy, Antenor led a group of Trojans and their Paphlagonian allies, the Eneti or Veneti, who lost their king Pylaemenes to settle the Euganean plain in Italy. Thus, when a large ancient stone sarcophagus was exhumed in the year 1274, officials of the medieval commune declared the remains within to be those of Antenor. An inscription by the native humanist scholar Lovato Lovati placed near the tomb reads:
Inclitus Antenor patriam vox nisa quietem.Transtulit huc Enetum Dardaniumque fugas,Expulit Euganeos, Patavinam condidit urbem,Quem tenet hic humili marmore cesa domus
"This sepulchre excavated from marblecontains the body of the noble Antenor who left his country,guided the Eneti and Trojans,banished the Euganeans and founded Padua."
More recent tests suggest the sepulcher dates back to between the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. Nevertheless, archeological remains confirm an early date for the foundation of the center of the town to between the 11th and 10th centuries BC. By the 5th century BC, Padua, rose on the banks of the river Brenta, which in the Roman era was called Medoacus Maior and probably until AD 589 followed the path of the present-day Bacchiglione (Retrone). Padua was one of the principal centers of the Veneti.
The Roman historian Livy records an attempted invasion by the Spartan king Cleonimos around 302 BC. The Spartans came up the river but were defeated by the Veneti in a naval battle and gave up the idea of conquest. Still, later, the Veneti of Padua successfully repulsed invasions by the Etruscans and Gauls. According to Livy and Silius Italicus, the Veneti, including those of Padua, formed an alliance with the Romans by 226 BC against their common enemies, first the Gauls and then the Carthaginians. Men from Padua fought and died beside the Romans at Cannae.
With Rome's northwards expansion, Padua was gradually assimilated into the Roman Republic. In 175 BC, Padua requested the aid of Rome in putting down a local civil war. In 91 BC, Padua, along with other cities of the Veneti, fought with Rome against the rebels in the Social War. Around 49 (or 45 or 43) BC, Padua was made a Roman municipium under the Lex Julia Municipalis and its citizens ascribed to the Roman tribe, Fabia. At that time the population of the city was perhaps 40,000. The city was reputed for its excellent breed of horses and the wool of its sheep. In fact, the poet Martial remarks on the thickness of the tunics made there.
By the end of the first century BC, Padua seems to have been the wealthiest city in Italy outside of Rome. The city became so powerful that it was reportedly able to raise two hundred thousand fighting men. However, despite its wealth, the city was also renowned for its simple manners and strict morality. This concern with morality is reflected in Livy's Roman History (XLIII.13.2) wherein he portrays Rome's rise to dominance as being founded upon her moral rectitude and discipline. Still later, Pliny, referring to one of his Paduan protégés' Paduan grandmother, Sarrana Procula, lauds her as more upright and disciplined than any of her strict fellow citizens (Epist. i.xiv.6). Padua provided the Empire with notable intellectuals. Nearby Abano was the birthplace, and after many years spent in Rome, the death place of Livy, whose Latin was said by the critic Asinius Pollio to betray his Patavinitas (q.v. Quintilian, Inst. Or. viii.i.3). Padua was also the birthplace of Thrasea Paetus, Asconius Pedianus, and perhaps Valerius Flaccus. Christianity was introduced in Padua and in most of the Veneto region by Saint Prosdocimus. He is venerated as the first bishop of the city. His deacon, the Jewish convert Daniel, is also a saintly patron of the city.
Late Antiquity
The history of Padua during Late Antiquity follows the course of events common to most cities of north-eastern Italy. Padua suffered from the invasion of the Huns and was savagely sacked by Attila in 450. A number of years afterward, it fell under the control of the Gothic kings Odoacer and Theodoric the Great. It was reconquered for a short time by the Byzantine Empire in 540 during the Gothic War. However, depopulation from plague and war ensued. The city was again seized by the Goths under Totila, but was restored to the Eastern Empire by Narses only to fall under the control of the Lombards in 568. During these years, many Paduans sought safety in the countryside and especially in the nearby lagoons of what would become Venice. In 601, the city rose in revolt against Agilulf, the Lombard king who put the city under siege.
After enduring a 12-year-long bloody siege, the Lombards stormed and burned the city. Many ancient artifacts and buildings were seriously damaged. The remains of an amphitheater (the Arena) and some bridge foundations are all that remain of Roman Padua today. The townspeople fled to the hills and later returned to eke out a living among the ruins; the ruling class abandoned the city for the Venetian Lagoon, 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 northern 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 the city of Padua. The end of the early Middle Ages in Padua was marked by the sack of the city by the Magyars in 899. It was many years after Padua recovered from this ravage. 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 (Ghibelline) and not Roman (Guelph); and its bishops were, for the most part, of Germanic extraction.
Emergence of the Commune
Under the surface, several important movements were taking place that were to prove formative for the later development of Padua. 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. 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. The city grew in power and self-confidence and in 1138, the government was entrusted to two consuls.
The great families of Camposampiero, Este and Da Romano began to emerge and to divide the Paduan district among themselves. The citizens, in order to protect their liberties, were obliged to elect a podestà in 1178. Their choice first fell on one of the Este family. A fire devastated Padua in 1174. This required the virtual rebuilding of the city.
The temporary success of the Lombard League helped to strengthen the towns. However, their civic jealousy soon reduced them to weakness again. In 1214–1216, Padua was involved in a conflict with Venice, which it lost. In 1236 Frederick II found little difficulty in establishing his vicar Ezzelino III da Romano in Padua and the neighbouring cities, where he practised frightful cruelties on the inhabitants. Ezzelino was unseated in June 1256 without civilian bloodshed, thanks to Pope Alexander IV.
Padua then enjoyed a period of calm and prosperity: the basilica of the saint was begun; and the Paduans became masters of Vicenza. The University of Padua (the second university in Italy, after Bologna) was founded in 1222, and as it flourished in the 13th century, Padua outpaced Bologna, where no effort had been made to expand the revival of classical precedents beyond the field of jurisprudence, to become a center of early humanist researches, with first-hand knowledge of Roman poets that was unrivalled in Italy or beyond the Alps. The advances of Padua in the 13th century finally brought the commune into conflict with Can Grande della Scala, lord of Verona. In 1311 Padua had to yield to the Scaligeri of Verona.
Emergence of the Signoria
Jacopo da Carrara was elected lord (signore) of Padua in 1318, at that point the city was home to 40,000 people. From then till 1405, nine members of the Carraresi family, including Ubertino, Jacopo II, and Francesco il Vecchio, succeeded one another as lords of the city, with the exception of a brief period of Scaligeri overlordship between 1328 and 1337 and two years (1388–1390) when Giangaleazzo Visconti held the town. The period of the signoria is covered down to 1358 in the chronicle of Guglielmo Cortusi.
The Carraresi period was a long period of restlessness, for the Carraresi were constantly at war. Under Carraresi rule the early humanist circles in the university were effectively disbanded: Albertino Mussato, the first modern poet laureate, died in exile at Chioggia in 1329, and the eventual heir of the Paduan tradition was the Tuscan Petrarch. In 1387, John Hawkwood won the Battle of Castagnaro for Padua, against Giovanni Ordelaffi, for Verona. The Carraresi period finally came to an end as the power of the Visconti and of Venice grew in importance.
Venetian rule
Padua came under the rule of the Republic of Venice in 1405, and mostly remained that way until the fall of the republic in 1797. There was just a brief period when the city changed hands (in 1509) during the wars of the League of Cambrai. On 10 December 1508, representatives of the Papacy, France, the Holy Roman Empire, and Ferdinand V of Castile concluded the League of Cambrai against the Republic. The agreement provided for the complete dismemberment of Venice's territory in Italy and for its partition among the signatories: Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I of the House of Habsburg was to receive Padua in addition to Verona and other territories. In 1509 Padua was held for just a few weeks by Imperial supporters. Venetian troops quickly recovered it and successfully defended Padua during its siege by Imperial troops.
The city was governed by two Venetian nobles, a podestà for civil affairs and a captain for military affairs. Both of them were 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 1507 and 1544, with a series of monumental gates.