Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/147

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

P A D P A D 131 by the boldness with, which it asserted democracy and total abolition of privilege, while it courted defeat in the field by appointing to the supreme command of its forces not Padilla but Don Pedro de Giron, who had no recom mendation but his high birth. After the army of the nobility had recaptured Tordesillas, Padilla did something to retrieve the loss by taking Torrelobaton and some other towns. But the junta, which was not fully in accord with its ablest leader, neutralized this advantage by grant ing an armistice ; when hostilities were resumed the commons were completely defeated near Villalar (April 23, 1521), and Padilla, who had been taken prisoner, was publicly executed on the following day. His wife, Dona Maria Pacheco de Padilla, bravely defended Toledo against the royal troops for six months afterwards, but ultimately was compelled to take refuge in Portugal. PADUA (Lat., Patavium ; Ital., Padova), a city of north Italy, in 45 24 N. lat. and 11 50 E. long., on the river Bacchiglione, 25 miles W. of Venice and 18 miles S.E. of Vicenza, with a population in 1881 of 70,753. The city is a picturesque one, with arcaded streets and many Plan of Padua. bridges crossing the various branches of the Bacchiglione, which once surrounded the ancient walls. The Pal azzo della Ragione, with its great hall on the upper floor, is reputed to have the largest roof unsupported by columns in Europe ; the hall is nearly rectangular, its length 267 feet, its breadth 89 feet, and its height 78 feet ; the walls are covered with symbolical paintings in fresco ; the building stands upon arches, and the upper story is surrounded by an open loggia, not unlike that which surrounds the basilica of Vicenza ; the Palazzo was begun in 1172, and finished in 1219; in 1306 Fra Giovanni, an Augustinian friar, covered the whole with one roof ; originally there were three roofs, spanning the three chambers into which the hall was at first divided ; the internal partition walls remained till the fire of 1420, when the Venetian architects who undertook the restora tion removed them, throwing all three compartments into one, and forming the present great hall. In the Piazza dei Signori is the beautiful loggia called the Gran Guardia, begun in 1493 and finished in 1526, and close by is the Palazzo del Capitanio, the residence of the Venetian governors, with its great door, the work of Falconetto of Verona, 1532. The most famous of the Paduan churches is the basilica dedicated to Saint Anthony, commonly called II Santo ; the bones of the saint rest in a chapel richly ornamented with carved marbles, the work of various artists, among them of Sansovino and Falconetto ; the basilica was begun about the year 1230, and completed in the following century tradition says that the building was designed by Niccola Pisano ; it is covered by seven cupolas, two of them pyramidal. On the piazza in front of the church is Donatello s magnificent equestrian statue of Erasmo da Narni, the Venetian general (1438-41). The Eremitani is an Augustinian church of the 13th century, distinguished as containing the tombs of Jacopo (1324) and Ubertino (1345) da Carrara, lords of Padua, and for the chapel of Sts James and Christopher, illustrated by Mantegna s frescos. Close by the Eremitani is the small church of the Annunziata, known as the Madonna delP Arena, whose inner walls are entirely covered with paintings by Giotto. Padua has long been famous for its university, founded by Frederick II. in 1238. Under the rule of Venice the university was governed by a board of three-* patricians called the Riformatori dello Studio di Padova. The list of professors and alumni is long and illustrious, containing, among others, the names of Bembo, Sperone Speroni, Veselius, Acquapendente, Galileo, Pompo- nazzi, Pole, Scaliger, Tasso, and Sobieski. The place of Padua in the history of art is nearly as important as her place in the history of learning. The presence of the university attracted many distinguished artists, as Giotto, Lippo Lippi, and Donatello ; and for native art there was the school of Squarcione (1394-1474), whence issued the great Mantegna (1431-1506). Padua claims to be the oldest city in north Italy ; the inhabi tants pretend to a fabulous descent from the Trojan Antenor, whose relics they recognized in a large stone sarcophagus exhumed in the year 1274. Their real origin is involved in that obscurity which conceals the ethnography of the earliest settlers in the Venetian plain ; but it is supposed that they were either Paphlagonians or Etruscans. Padua early became a populous and thriving city, thanks to its excellent breed of horses and the wool of its sheep. Its men fought for the Romans at Cannae, and the city became so powerful that it was reported able to raise two hundred thousand fighting men. Abano in the neighbourhood was made illustrious by the birth of Livy, and Padua was the native place of Valerius Flaccus, Asconius Pedianus, and Thrasea Psetus. Padua, in common with north-eastern Italy, suffered severely from the invasion of the Huns under Attila (452). It then passed under the Gothic kings Odoacer and Theodoric, but made submission to the Greeks in 540. The city was seized again by the Goths under Totila, and again restored to the eastern empire by Narses in 568. Following the course of events common to most cities of north-eastern Italy, the history of Padua falls under eight heads: (1) the Lombard rule, (2) the Frankish rule, (3) the period of the bishops, (4) the emergence of the commune, (5) the period of the despots, (6) the period of Venetian supremacy, (7) the period of Austrian supremacy, and finally (8) the period of united Italy. (1) Under the Lom bards the city of Padua rose in revolt (601) against Agilulph, the Lombard king, and, after suffering a long and bloody siege, was stormed and burned by him. The city did not easily recover from this blow, and Padua was still weak when the Franks succeeded the Lombards as masters of north Italy. (2) At the diet of Aix- la-Chapelle (828) the duchy and inarch of Friuli, in which Padua lay, was divided into four counties, one of which took its title from that city. (3) During the period of episcopal supremacy Padua does not appear to have been either very important or very active. The general tendency of its policy, throughout the war of investitures, was imperial and not Roman ; and its bishops were, for the most part, Germans. (4) But under the surface two important move ments were taking place. At the beginning of the llth century the citizens established a constitution composed of a general council or legislative assembly and a credenza or executive ; and during the next century they were engaged in wars with Venice and Vicenza for the right of water-way on the Bacchiglione and the Brenta, so that, on the one hand, the city grew in power and self-reliance, while, on the other, the great families of Camposampiero, D Este,