Tour of Padova

According to tradition, the origin of Padua is legendary and noble: it was in fact founded in 1185 BC from the mythological figure of Antenore, which climbed the Brenta in search of a new home after the escape from Troy and drove the Euganei from this area, relegating them to the south, close to the volcanic hills that still bear their name. The city comes into contact with Rome almost from the origins of this, holding a military alliance to face together the pressure of the Gauls, settled on the nearby Beriche hills, south of the current Vicenza. Subsequently, the increasingly frequent relations determine the Romanization of the city, which becomes municipium between 49 and 42 BC, probably in 45 BC with the Lex Julia Municipalis. In this period Padua was the third most important city, after Rome and Cadiz and became part of the X Regio that had as its capital Aquileia, which was connected thanks to the Via Annia (built in 731 BC) that left Adria. This ancient and important road allowed to connect with the Postumia, which crossed the Po Valley, arriving to Genoa and continued beyond Adria with the Annia Pompilia and the Flaminia that ended in Rome. The Paduan Renaissance is historically located a little earlier than the development and rebirth of the Lords of Central Italy, due to a series of historical events, but also for the cultural and artistic debate that the birth of the University and the presence in the city of some particularly innovative characters they manage to create. Giotto and De ‘Menabuoi, Pietro D’Abano, Petrarca, Marsilio, Donatello, Squarcione, Mantegna met from the fall of the Da Romano family until the first half of the 14th century. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Padua is definitely Guelph city: the bond with the Church and the Papacy are reflected in city life and allow the defeat of the Da Roman allies of the Emperors Federico Barbatossa first, Otto IV and Federico II then. But in the city there has also developed a new secular conscience favored by the growth of the new bourgeoisie that has freed itself from the feudal system introduced by the Lombards and claims spaces of power by subtracting them from the Lords, but also from the Bishops who have extensive properties within and outside the city. Also the presence of the free University contributes to the secularization of the city.
Here students of every confession and every nation are admitted and welcomed, favoring the intellectual exchange, but also the appreciation of universal values precisely because they are not linked to this or that spiritual practice. On horseback between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries with Pietro D’Abano and Marsilio from Padua develops the so-called Paduan Aristotelianism, a philosophical current that opens knowledge to multidisciplinarity, but also promotes concepts such as the secular nature of the Government, peace as a supreme good and the authority of the Lord derived from the will of the community.These theories led to definition of heretics and the persecution by the Church of all those who embraced her, from the aforementioned Peter and Marsilius, up to Galileo. Around 1543 the first Garden of the Simple Worlds was founded, or the first Botanical Garden. The “simple” were the “simple” remedies, ie essential, derived from plants, the basis of pharmacology. Just to teach the “simple” together with “surgery and notomia”, was called in 1551 Gabriele Falloppio, who with his studies of anatomy described in addition to the tubes which gave the name, important parts of the eye and ear. The medical school of Padua became increasingly important internationally attracting students and professors from all over Europe. If Padua had not been in the Republic of Venice, many studies could not have been carried out, given that in large parts of Europe the anatomical sections of human bodies were considered a crime punishable by death. In the same year in which Fabrici d’Acquapendente published the first treatise of comparative embryology, the De forma foetu (1600), in Rome was burned at the stake as a heretic Giordano Bruno, who refused to abjure his ideas. The possibility of experimenting in the anatomical field will lead to the foundation of pathological anatomy by Morgagni at the end of the 18th century.

A journey between past and present, between millennial history, traditions and art: this is Padua. A city full of beauty, such as the restored Palazzo della Ragione and the Loggia dei Carraresi, evidence of the ancient splendor of the Lordship of the Carraresi; the Scrovegni Chapel with the precious cycle of Giotto’s frescoes; the sculptures of the Donatello or the most modern lines of the Libeskind monument. It is a journey through the magnificence of the ancient palaces, in the spirituality that is breathed in its Churches among all the Basilicas of S. Antonio, of S. Giustina, the Duomo with its Romanesque Baptistery among the daily swarming of the city markets of Piazza delle Grazie Herbs and Piazza della Frutta, between the grandeur of Prato della Valle and under the ancient porticoes. Padua is also the city of science that develops between the ancient walls of the university building of the Palazzo del Bo and along the avenues of the first university Botanical Garden of Europe.