Famous Landmarks in Padua
Eight medieval buildings share one UNESCO listing for their fourteenth-century frescoes.
Padua's landmarks sit inside the loop the river Bacchiglione draws around the old centre, with the Brenta still touching the northern districts and the Euganaean Hills rising beyond the plain to the south west. The oldest buildings are civic and religious: a market hall and law court begun in the early thirteenth century, and a basilica built as an international shrine in the same period, both later reworked in Renaissance style. The following century brought a Gothic clock tower to the main square and, nearby, a small chapel whose frescoes changed how walls were painted across the region. The cathedral seen today is the newest of the group, a Baroque and Renaissance rebuilding raised over a church founded many centuries earlier.
Basilica of Saint Anthony
1238–1310
Two of its side chapels hold fourteenth-century fresco cycles as part of a shared shrine complex large enough to include a full convent alongside the church itself.
This minor basilica and its adjoining convent function as an international shrine recognised directly by the Holy See, holding basilica rank through a privilege of immemorial custom rather than a papal decree. It is not Padua's cathedral, which carries a separate dedication elsewhere in the city. Two of its chapels, the Cappella di San Giacomo and the Cappella del Beato Luca Belludi, were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2021 as part of a shared listing covering the city's fourteenth-century fresco cycles.
- It holds basilica rank through a privilege of immemorial custom, a status recognised directly by the Holy See.
- It is known locally as "il Santo" even though it is not the city's cathedral.
Photo: Didier Descouens (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Palazzo della Ragione
1219
The building sits lengthwise between two market squares, its ground floor still trading as a covered market beneath the upper storey once used for civic and judicial business.
Built as a combined market hall, town hall and law court, the building still divides its functions by floor: the upper level once handled town and judicial administration, while the ground floor has never stopped serving as covered market space. It separates Piazza delle Erbe from Piazza dei Frutti, the two squares it was built to sit between, and is popularly known as il Salone, "the big hall." It joined the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2021 as part of Padua's fourteenth-century fresco cycles.
- Its nickname, il Salone, simply means "the big hall."
- Its ground floor has functioned as a market since the Middle Ages and still does.
Photo: Didier Descouens (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Torre dell'Orologio
1437 · Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio
It stands wedged between two adjoining palaces on the square, with a monumental triumphal arch inserted at its base in the sixteenth century.
Rising on Piazza dei Signori between two adjoining palaces, the tower was commissioned to carry an astronomical clock for the ruling Carraresi family. Construction began in 1426; the clock mechanism, overseen by physician and engineer Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio with Gian Petro Dalle Caldiere, was finished in 1434, and the tower was inaugurated in 1437. A triumphal arch, designed by Giovanni Maria Falconetto, was added at its base in 1531. Volunteers now keep the clock open to visitors.
- On the original clock, the zodiac dial left out Libra, following an older system that merged it with Scorpio.
- A volunteer group called Salvalarte now keeps the tower open to the public.
Photo: Didier Descouens (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Scrovegni Chapel
1305
The interior is covered edge to edge by a single fresco campaign rather than work added in different periods, giving the small chapel a uniform, densely painted appearance unusual for a building its size.
This small church, built beside the Augustinian monastery now folded into the city's civic museums, owes its fame to the fresco cycle painted across its interior, finished around 1305. The cycle is considered one of the works that began a revolution in mural painting, reshaping fresco technique, style and subject matter for a century afterward. In 2021 the chapel was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List jointly with seven other buildings, as Padua's fourteenth-century fresco cycles.
- It is also known as the Arena Chapel.
- Its 2021 UNESCO listing covers it jointly with seven other buildings, not on its own.
Photo: Andrea Piroddi (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Padua Cathedral
1754
Its façade and interior combine Renaissance planning with Baroque execution, standing at the end of its square directly beside the bishop's palace.
Seat of the Bishop of Padua and dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, the cathedral stands at the east end of its square, beside the bishop's palace. A church has occupied the site since the fourth century, when it was first raised as a cathedral, but the building has been reconstructed repeatedly since; its present Baroque and Renaissance form was completed in 1754. It is distinct from the city's other major basilica, dedicated to a different saint.
Photo: Didier Descouens (CC BY-SA 4.0)
History
Building in Padua accelerated once the city became a seat of learning, with its university founded in 1222. Civic administration needed a public hall, and by 1219 the Palazzo della Ragione stood between the two market squares that still flank it, its upper floor given over to justice and its ground floor to trade. A shrine to house the relics of a Franciscan friar followed, growing into a basilica with the status of an international sanctuary. Carraresi rule over the city in the fourteenth century left the astronomical clock tower on Piazza dei Signori, engineered by Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio and finished with a triumphal arch added in 1531. The same century saw Giotto fresco the Scrovegni Chapel, work later recognised alongside seven other buildings as a single UNESCO listing. The cathedral, founded in the fourth century, reached its present Baroque form in 1754.