Padua

Padua (/ˈpædjuə/ PAD-ew-ə) 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, 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Venice and 29 km (18 miles) southeast of Vicenza. With a population of 207,694 as of 2025, Padua is the third-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. An example is the Scrovegni Chapel painted by Giotto at the beginning of 1300.

Padua is home to one of the oldest universities in the world, the University of Padua, founded in 1222 and where figures such as 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.

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.^{[citation needed]} According to another theory, Patavium probably derives from Gaulish padi 'pine', in reference to the pine forests thereabouts.

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