When you visit an Italian city for the first time it either grabs you immediately just by force of personality or it grows on you slowly as you discover its secrets and hidden places. We entered Padua (or Padova as it is known here) from the south so our first view of the city was the remarkable Prato della Valle, a piazza so full of pomp and swagger that you fall in love with Padua straight away.
It's the largest piazza in Italy, an impressive elliptical space with a canal surrounding an island in the middle and 78 statues in a double file around the canal. The statues were all made between 1775 and 1883 and portray influential local people or others who made important contributions to the city, like Galileo who lived and taught in Padua from 1592 to 1610.
Antonio Canova, the celebrated Veneto sculptor, is also here, depicted in the act of sculpting though looking more like he's driving a dagger into a man's skull.
Even though enormous in size, Prato della Valle was full to the brim with cheering crowds in September 1938 for Mussolini's visit at what was probably the zenith of fascism in Italy. (Archival footage of this visit can be seen on youtube). But after the Italian capitulation five years later Padua became an important center of resistance against Nazi Germany and the University of Padua became the only Italian university subsequently awarded a gold medal for military valor.
Padua also suffered from heavy bombing in the final years of WW2, especially on the night of February 8th 1944 when heavy civilian casualties were suffered.
February 8th coincidentally was a date that had always been a day of celebration in Padua because of the events almost 100 years earlier in 1848 during the first risorgimento when a rebellion by university students contributed to temporarily freeing the city from Austrian rule.
As befitting the second oldest university in Italy (and the 5th oldest in the world) Padua's students have been at the forefront of change many times over the centuries and as long ago as the mid 17th century a Venetian who obtained a doctorate in philosophy became the first female graduate of a European university.
Galileo only came here to teach because of the freedoms enjoyed in this city under the benign rule of the Serenissima, especially religious freedom from the repressive policies of the counter-Reformation, something that Galileo was to experience personally many years after leaving Padua when he was put on trial for heresy by the Roman inquisition. Unsurprisingly perhaps, given all that happened afterwards, at the end of his life Galileo referred to his years in Padua as the "eighteen best years of my life".
Padua is an ancient city, founded well before Roman times, but strangely it enjoyed few periods of political independence during the 2,100 years up to Italian unification. It allied itself with Rome very early in 226 B.C. and remained loyal until the very end of the western Roman empire. It was then subject to the same chaos and repeated invasions as the rest of northern Italy until the late Middle Ages when it acquired autonomy as a free municipality, allied militarily with the Veronese League and Lombard League against Barbarossa, during which time the university was founded in 1222.
From 1318-1405 Padua enjoyed real independence when it was ruled by a local aristocratic family, da Carrara, and it flourished as a city. Being so close to Venice there was a certain inevitability in Padua being forced to cede political control to the Serenissima once Venice decided that it needed a buffer zone on land to protect the Republic, and so it turned out when the War of Padua was lost in 1405. However during the next 400 years of Venetian rule and protection, Padua enjoyed peace, prosperity and freedom interrupted only briefly by Venice's enemies in 1509 during the War of the League of Cambrai.
Leaving the Prato della Valle we headed towards the Palazzo della Ragione flanked on either side by the Piazza della Frutta and Piazza delle Erbe. Monday is a market day in Padua and though it is a very famous food market there was nothing we needed to buy so our first stop was for a coffee at the legendary Caffè Pedrocchi (below), an iconic Paduan institution that is approaching its 200th anniversary.
One of the most important and well-preserved coffee shops in Europe, it's an eclectic mix of architectural styles incorporating Neoclassical and Venetian Gothic aspects in its porticoes, Doric columns and ornamental lions.
It is situated, appropriately, on Via VIII Febbraio because this was the scene of the 1848 student rebellion commemorated by a plaque on the wall of the White Room inside. Students might not feel at home here today however, because on entering you can't help feeling underdressed for the hushed, very formal ambience inside. It is a beautiful historic place that makes you realize how much scruffiness we tolerate as normal these days.
It has been owned by the municipality of Padua since 1891 so clearly Padua is a city that knows how to take care of its cultural heritage.
The Palazzo della Ragione is a 13th/14th century building constructed over Roman ruins and now a UNESCO world heritage site largely due to the frescoes in the hall that were originally created by Giotto but had to be remade after a fire in 1420. However, Giotto's most famous work in Padua are the frescoes in the Scrovegni chapel.
High up on the west wall of the Palazzo della Ragione where it can be seen from the Piazza dei Signori is the Loggetta dei Bandi. This is the Proclamations Balcony from which all important announcements were made such as death sentences and declarations of war and peace.
Padua is a vibrant city, even without tourists in winter, and we found it much more interesting than nearby Vicenza. On two separate weekdays the contrast between the two cities was remarkable - the center of Vicenza was completely deserted, even the Piazza dei Signori, with many of the restaurants closed in the middle of the day whereas Padua was lively and busy during the lunch hour. Given how many fascinating places there are in Veneto competing for your time, we would skip Vicenza in favor of Padua and include also Treviso, Bassano del Grappa, Asolo and Chioggia as well as the Prosecco hills.
On the subject of lunch, we found a marvelous place in Padua at the end of the short alleyway between the Loggetta dei Bandi and the Piazza dei Signori. Strangely named 'Brutal', it is a mixture of cicchetteria, enoteca and tapas bar and it served the best and certainly the most elaborate cicchetti that we had eaten during our trip around Veneto
It has a bewildering choice of snacks, all of which must have taken some time to prepare, so the easiest thing is to order the crunchino misto and the polpette miste and the plate above with two glasses of excellent Prosecco Col Fondo came to a very reasonable 26 euros. For an explanation of Col Fondo wines scroll towards the end of the Miotto Prosecco article.
The Basilica di Sant'Antonio di Padova is one of the largest churches in the world and is visited annually by over 6 million people. I was about to say that it was quite crowded when we were there but in light of that statistic I now understand that it was actually almost empty on our Monday in February compared to what it must be like at other times. So if this magnificent church is on your list to visit then you might want to consider a winter trip.
Saint Anthony's body was placed here in 1231 and it was only after he had been raised to sainthood a year later that work began on the Basilica that is here today. The interior space is 115 meters long with so many different chapels and so much skilled work on display that I will leave it to the experts to describe in detail. Suffice to say that it is a breathtaking display of centuries of work by talented painters and sculptors and several hours are required to fully appreciate it all.
