Horatio Robert Forbes Brown

“ Padua claims to be the oldest city in north Italy; the inhabitants 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. 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. ”

“ After the fall of the Venetian republic the history of Padua follows the history of Venice during the periods of French and Austrian supremacy. In 1866 the battle of Koniggratz gave Italy the opportunity to shake off the last of the Austrian yoke, when Venetia, and with Venetia Padua, became part of the united Italian kingdom. ”

“ At the beginning of the 11th 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 and Da Romano began to emerge and to divide the Paduan district between them. ”