26 Facts About Padua

Padua is a city and comune in Veneto, northern Italy.

Padua appears twice in the UNESCO World Heritage List: for its Botanical Garden, the most ancient of the world, and the 14th-century Frescoes, situated in different buildings of the city centre.

City hosts the famous University of Padua, which was founded in 1222 when a group of students and professors decided to leave the University of Bologna to have more freedom of expression.

At the University of Padua, Galileo Galilei was a lecturer between 1592 and 1610.

Padua is the setting for most of the action in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.

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Still, later, the Veneti of Padua successfully repulsed invasions by the Etruscans and Gauls.

Around 49 BC, Padua was made a Roman municipium under the Lex Julia Municipalis and its citizens ascribed to the Roman tribe, Fabia.

Padua was the birthplace of Thrasea Paetus, Asconius Pedianus, and perhaps Valerius Flaccus.

Padua's deacon, the Jewish convert Daniel, is a saintly patron of the city.

Padua suffered from the invasion of the Huns and was savagely sacked by Attila in 450.

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.

End of the early Middle Ages in Padua was marked by the sack of the city by the Magyars in 899.

The University of Padua 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.

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.

In 1509 Padua was held for just a few weeks by Imperial supporters.

Under Austrian rule, Padua began its industrial development; one of the first Italian rail tracks, Padua-Venice, was built in 1845.

In 1866 the Battle of Koniggratz gave Italy the opportunity, as an ally of Prussia, to take Veneto, and Padua was annexed to the recently formed Kingdom of Italy.

When Italy entered World War I on 24 May 1915, Padua was chosen as the main command of the Italian Army.

Padua has long been acclaimed for its university, founded in 1222.

Padua is the birthplace of the celebrated architect Andrea Palladio, whose 16th-century villas in the area of Padua, Venice, Vicenza and Treviso are among the most notable of Italy and they were often copied during the 18th and 19th centuries; and of Giovanni Battista Belzoni, adventurer, engineer and egyptologist.

Padua plays host to the majority of Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare and in Much Ado About Nothing Benedick is named as "Signior Benedick of Padua".

The average age of Padua residents is 45 compared to the Italian average of 42.

Padua is serviced by the Verona Villafranca Airport, Treviso Airport and Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport.

Padua is the home of one of Italy's four area control centres.

Padua has approximately 40 bus lines, which are served by new buses .

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Padua is the home of Calcio Padova, an association football team that currently plays in Italy's Serie C, and who played 16 Serie A championships ; the Petrarca Padova rugby union team, winner of 12 national championships and 2 national cups, and now plays in the Top12 league; and the Pallavolo Padova volleyball club, once called Petrarca Padova as well, which plays in the Italian second division and who won a CEV cup in 1994.