Padova

Way back when Michael was here, when the days were hot as well as sunny, we three took a Monday excursion to Padova. Less than an hour by train from Venice, it's an old old university town with a few famous, 'biggest in Europe', sights. As we went on a Monday though, there were a couple of things we missed out on. Thankfully, Finn had visited Padova with his folks back in July so he (with photos) was able to fill us in  on the bits we were missing. Anyway, it's well time I posted on Padova, and revisiting these pictures warms me up no end in what today is a very breezy pavilion.

Palazzo della Ragione.
The ground floor of this building is an old old market, something akin to the Victoria markets in Melbourne, but older. It was one of our closed on Mondays disappointments, although there were rows and rows of vegetable markets open outside in the square.

The ceiling of the upstairs veranda, courtesy of Finn. 

And the upper floor - apparently the largest unsupported roof in Europe.
Amazing space, Finn tells us, and it looks it. Possibly some kind of court room, with it's very own 'seat of shame'.

The seat of shame.
Not too comfy by the looks of it.

A little explanation from Finn about the seat of shame: when facing financial ruin people could choose the seat of shame option instead of imprisonment. This option entailed sitting for a specified period - maybe a day, perhaps a week - on the seat of shame, forfeiting their assets to the state, and afterwards going into exile.

Across the room from the seat of shame is an example of Foucault's pendulum, an experiment illustrating the rotation of the earth.

And this really big horse (almost 6m high) from 1466, which we don't know anything else about.
And yes, great frescos too.

At the southern end of the old town is Prato della Valle, an elliptical town square. Other than the fact that it's ringed by a road, and therefore serves as an oversized roundabout (a notion not unfamiliar in Wellington), it's really a very nice park. It's claimed to be the largest square in Italy, and one of the largest in Europe, although I think their measurements must include the road. The roundabout itself feels large, but not overwhelmingly huge.

One of the four bridges across the moat into the square.

Although Michael and I calculated the number of statues ringing the square, I don't seem to have any notes from that day and I can't for the life of me remember. Lets just say there are a lot.

One of the bridges, instead of having figures, has columns resting on these funny feet.

The artist who sculpted all the figures didn't miss the opportunity to put himself in there.

A ring of statues lines each side of the moat.

You can see the columns in the background, and the sculptor on the left.

Faces in the bridge railing.

Across the square is Basilica di santa Guistina, but it was closed.

Just down the way a bit there's another really big church though, and we did visit that.

Basilica Pontificia di Sant'Antonio di Padova.

No photos were allowed inside, so I can only try to describe for you some of what we saw. The church (supposedly) houses the relics of Saint Anthony, displayed in amongst church booty. Imagine a display cabinet filled to bursting - golden goblets placed alongside a lower jaw bone and crystal coffee sets interspersed with tufts of hair, toenails, and a tongue. All these pieces of the saint were discovered intact when his body was exhumed in 1981, 750 years after his death - a miracle in itself.

As Anthony is the patron saint of lost things, the church is a site of pilgrimage for people wanting to recover lost objects and missing people. Outside the front of the church is a small square lined with people selling candles and other trinkets to be taken into the church as offerings to the saint. Inside there is a designated area where such offerings are to be left. This includes a ramp up to a chapel, on the side of which are huge white plastic buckets (say 1.5 x 1 x 1 meters) to put offerings in. So candles are not lit, but rather placed in these buckets, purportedly to be lit but possibly just to be taken back out to the stalls for re-selling. Finn said that when he had been there in July the buckets were all overflowing with offerings. We saw them maybe half full. Still a lot of candles not to be lit. (We bought one of these candles - a plan tall white number, quite large - and took it home to burn. It was rubbish, burning down to nothing in no time and making a right mess as it went. Obviously not designed for long burning church vigils.) Inside the chapel is a tomb (of someone completely unrelated), which forms the backdrop for a series of pin boards crowded with photos of lost people. I guess the gist of it is that the more candles you give, the more likely lost loved ones are to return. Good for business outside anyway. Aside from all the lost people, that chapel was quite amazing, very disappointing not to be able to take pictures. Finn did some drawings of the floors - great geometric patterns - but the walls were especially amazing. The colour scheme of the whole thing was black and grey and white, and the walls were lined with forced perspective architectural pictures in marble relief. 

In this (one of many) cloister-surrounded courtyard was a magnolia tree apparently planted on the grave of the man who discovered fallopian tubes - Gabriele Falloppio (1523-62), a lecturer in anatomy at the local university.

There is a museum in the church complex that Finn had been to, but which is closed on Mondays. He'd taken photos in there of these great paintings of people dying, particularly by throwing themselves out of upper story windows, while Saint Anthony looks on from 'above'. I had really wanted to see them, but that's the breaks. I'm pleased to have his photos.

A section of the display.

And there they go.
A child tumbles off a 4th floor balcony.

And a woman is bombarded by falling bricks.

We tried to figure out the meaning of it all, but really I think it's just one of those things that is beyond us. In that other realm of understanding to the one we subscribe to.

Looking back across the Falloppio courtyard to the church bell tower.

Then it was down the road to the Orto Botanico - the oldest botanical gardens in the world. It was lovely, there were cool ponds in the shade of big old trees, curious flowers flourishing in sunporch style green houses, and the pungently intoxicating smell of sweet osmanthus wafting through the air.

Finn and Michael at a gateway in the gardens.

Finn and Michael getting kinky with some rude looking flowers.

A goethe palm tree, planted in 1585, now in it's own special greenhouse.

Michael and I left Finn here in a cool shady spot while we walked briskly back to the other end of town, to the Scrovegni Chapel. We had booked ourselves in on our way into town earlier in the day, but Finn had already been through so opted out of doing it a second time. It's a bit of a process to get inside the chapel, beginning with making the booking. Prior to your allotted time you must check your bag in at the nearby museum, then make your way through the park to the chapel to await your turn. Attached to the side of the chapel is an air-conditioned room where each group is shut inside (with a video to watch about the chapel) for 15 minutes before being ushered through into the chapel itself. No cameras allowed, so here are a couple of images I borrowed off the net.

The interior of the Scrovegni Chapel looking to the back.
The chapel is famous for it's floor to ceiling fresco cycle by Giotto, and it is amazing.

And looking back the other way.
Great floor too, although it's covered now so you can only see the very edges when you're in there.

My favourite fresco scene was of Christ underwater, but I couldn't find an image of it online.

Here are some people watching some other people make out instead.

Finn met us outside when our time was up, near this old Roman wall.

Then there was time for just one more church before we headed back to the train, and home for pizza and spritz.

Somewhere along the way there was this great segment in the floor, but we cannot at all remember where.
Here it is anyway, and here's hoping we someday see it in wood.

16 November 2011