Padua

Padua, a powerhouse of intellectual history, has youthful energy

The University of Bologna had already grown to 10,000 students by the time Padua founded its university in 1222. Padua was long the academic heartbeat of the powerful Venetian Republic -- and far before that, an ancient Roman stronghold -- and for this reason, one of Italy’s most important medieval and Renaissance cities. Dante and Copernicus studied here, Petrarch and Galileo taught here. When you wander the narrow, cobbled, arcaded side streets in the timeless neighborhoods surrounding the "Bo" (named after a 15th-century inn that once stood on the present-day site of the university), you’ll be transported back to those times.

Today, Padua is a vital city with a young university population that gets around by bicycle and keeps the city's piazzas and cafes alive. The town’s historical hub still evokes the days when the city and its university flourished in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance as a center of learning and art.

Padua’s most important sites are Giotto's magnificent, not-to-be-missed frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel and the revered pilgrimage site of the eight-domed Basilica of Sant'Antonio di Padova, whose important equestrian statue by Donatello stands in the piazza before it.

© 2009, Wiley Publishing, Inc.