a province of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, in the government of Venice, is bounded on the N. by the province of Treviso, E. by that of Venice, S. by the Polesine, W. by Verona, and N.W. by Vicenza. It extends over 835 English square miles, and is divided into eight districts, containing 104 communes and 771 villages. Its population, which in 1834 was 286,800, in 1857 had risen to more than 318,000 persons. The land is an extensive plain, except on the S.W. side, where the volcanic group of the Euganean Hills rises. It is chiefly drained by the Brenta, the Musone, the Bacchiglione, and the Adige which skirts it on the S.; and has numerous canals, many of which are for irrigation, and some for navigation. The fertility of the soil is very great, and agriculture is well conducted; wine, wheat, maize, rice, oil, great variety of fruit, sheep, poultry, &c., are copiously produced. Hemp, flax, and silk are also extensively grown, and afford some employment to manufacturers, but they are chiefly exported in a raw state. The district of the Euganean Hills has numerous mineral springs; those of Abano, only 6 miles from Padua, are much resorted to by invalids.

PADEA (the anc. Patavium, Ital. Padova), the capital of the province of the same name, and one of the most ancient cities in Italy, is situated on the River Bacchiglione, in 45° 23' 40" N. Lat., and 11° 46' 38" E. Long. It stands in the midst of a garden-like plain, and is connected with the Lagunes by the Large Canal, with the River Adige by the Monselice Canal, and with Venice, Verona, and Milan by railway.

Legendary tradition attributed the foundation of Patavium to Antenor, after the fall of Troy:

"Antenor potuit, medias elapsas Achivis, Illyricos penetrare sinus, atque intima tuis Regna Liburnorum, et fontes superare Timavi... Hic tamen ille urbem Patavi, sedesque locavit: Teucerum... Nunc placida compositus pace quiescit."

Ennius, I. 243.

A large skeleton, grasping a sword in his bony hand, found in a marble sarcophagus discovered in 1274, was supposed to be that of the Trojan founder. Patavium was the capital of the Veneti, and at an early period was so flourishing that, according to Strabo, it could send an army of 120,000 men into the field. The Patavians were constantly at war with, and successfully withstood, the Cisalpine Gauls; and in 301 B.C. they also defeated Cleonynus the Macedonian, who had unexpectedly landed at the mouth of the Medoacus (the modern Brenta), and attacked them. Patavium fell eventually under the power of Rome, though it seems to have retained a semblance of independence. At the time of Strabo it was still the first city in Upper Italy; but it was gradually eclipsed by Aquileia and Mediolanum. Its prosperity came suddenly to an end in 452, when it was taken and destroyed by Attila; and in 601 it was again taken and burnt to the ground by Agilulf, King of the Longobards. It rose, however, from its ashes; and in the tenth century it had already become, as it has continued ever since, one of the most important cities of Upper Italy.

In 1164 Padua formed, with Verona, Vicenza, and Treviso, a league for the protection of their liberties against Frederic I. Barbarossa; in 1167 it joined the great Lombard League; and by the peace of Constance in 1183 had at length its liberties acknowledged. In 1239 Eccellino da Romano made himself master of it, and after having practised unheard-of cruelties, in 1256 he was driven out and defeated by a crusade formed against him by most of the towns of Upper Italy. After a period of stormy independence, Padua in 1337 fell under the sway of the house of Carrara, who held it till the year 1405, when it was taken by the republic of Venice, with which, in 1797, it passed into the hands of Austria by the treaty of Campoformido.

The modern city contains upwards of 50,000 inhabitants, and is the see of a bishop, and the residence of the civil and criminal courts of first instance of the government of Venice. It is surrounded with walls and ditches, and defended by several bastions; it has many churches rich in works of art, many magnificent public buildings and old palaces, and several fine squares; but the streets are generally narrow, and most of the houses are supported by long rows of pointed arches. Its university, one of the oldest in Italy, enjoyed great celebrity as early as the beginning of the thirteenth century; and some of the greatest medical names in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are among its professors. Galileo was for many years its professor of mathematics. There are five faculties—theology, law, medicine, philosophy, and mathematics, with 46 professorships, and from 1200 to 1800 students. In consequence of disturbances that took place on the 9th of February 1848, the university was closed on the 16th of that month by the Austrian military authority, and was not re-opened till 1850. Connected with the university, but at a distance from it, is a library of more than 100,000 vols. and 1500 MSS. The Episcopal and Benedictine libraries have more than 50,000 vols. each; and the Capitular library, of which Petrarch was one of the founders, 10,000 vols. and many MSS. There are connected with the university a botanical garden, founded by the Venetian senate in 1543, and containing some of the oldest specimens of exotic trees and plants in Europe; an astronomical observatory, founded in 1769; four clinical schools for medicine, surgery, midwifery, and diseases of the eye; and a veterinary and agricultural college. The Palazzo della Municipalità, or town-hall, erected in the twelfth century, is a vast building upon open arcades, and contains a hall 267 feet long, and 89 in height and width. The chapel of St Maria dell' Arena, erected by the Scrovegno family, contains the most perfect and genuine frescoes by Giotto. The church of St Antonio is remarkable for the richness and beauty of its internal decorations. The Prato delle Valle is an irregular open space, in which are numerous statues of great men, chiefly natives of Padua. Livy, and Thracea Pactus, who was put to death by Nero, were born at Patavium; and modern Padua has been the birth-place of many distinguished philosophers and literary characters.