Description
Padua's City Walls are the ring of walls, bastions and gates that encircles the city: above all the great Renaissance circuit built by Venice in the 16th century, never taken in battle, together with the inner medieval stretches.
Of the Venetian walls almost all the Renaissance gates survive: Porta Savonarola, Porta San Giovanni, Porta Ognissanti at the Portello, Porta Liviana and Porta Santa Croce. Of the medieval circuit you can see Porta Molino with Ezzelino's Tower, and Porta Altinate.
The Venetian system combined wall, water and greenery: moats and canals on one side, the open glacis on the other. The condottiero Bartolomeo d'Alviano also worked on it, between 1513 and 1515.
In the 14th century the chronicler Giovanni da Nono described the city's communal walls as a "most beautiful wall" in the shape of a horseshoe. Even the bell tower of San Fermo began as a defensive tower, in the 9th century.
Of the Venetian walls almost all the Renaissance gates survive: Porta Savonarola, Porta San Giovanni, Porta Ognissanti at the Portello, Porta Liviana and Porta Santa Croce. Of the medieval circuit you can see Porta Molino with Ezzelino's Tower, and Porta Altinate.
The Venetian system combined wall, water and greenery: moats and canals on one side, the open glacis on the other. The condottiero Bartolomeo d'Alviano also worked on it, between 1513 and 1515.
In the 14th century the chronicler Giovanni da Nono described the city's communal walls as a "most beautiful wall" in the shape of a horseshoe. Even the bell tower of San Fermo began as a defensive tower, in the 9th century.