Description
The Tomb of Antenor is a medieval shrine in central Padua, in front of the Prefecture building: a sarcophagus on columns under a cone-shaped roof, which the Middle Ages decided was the tomb of the Trojan hero who founded the city.
The sarcophagus, in local stone, is about 2.3 meters long and dates from the 4th-5th century. On its smooth surface the notary and poet Lovato de' Lovati had verses carved that tie it to the myth of Troy. The conical roof of 1283-1284 recalls the domes of the nearby Basilica of Saint Anthony.
According to tradition, the coffin was found in 1274 while digging the foundations of a hospice, together with a sword and a treasure of gold. A prophecy attributed to Merlin played on the names of the master builder, Capra, and of Lovato, the "Lovo" (the wolf).
Analyses have dated the bones to between 135 and 430 AD: a man of about fifty, around 1.70 meters tall, whose brain, according to scholars, had been removed after death, a rare practice in Roman times. So it was not Antenor.
The sarcophagus, in local stone, is about 2.3 meters long and dates from the 4th-5th century. On its smooth surface the notary and poet Lovato de' Lovati had verses carved that tie it to the myth of Troy. The conical roof of 1283-1284 recalls the domes of the nearby Basilica of Saint Anthony.
According to tradition, the coffin was found in 1274 while digging the foundations of a hospice, together with a sword and a treasure of gold. A prophecy attributed to Merlin played on the names of the master builder, Capra, and of Lovato, the "Lovo" (the wolf).
Analyses have dated the bones to between 135 and 430 AD: a man of about fifty, around 1.70 meters tall, whose brain, according to scholars, had been removed after death, a rare practice in Roman times. So it was not Antenor.