Montagnana
Montagnana: Situated in the Padua territory, this fortified town is a veritable jewel of architecture: its walls hide significant historical information and the heritage of its past is revived every year with the exciting Palio dei 10 Comuni della Scodosia
Montagnana Province Padova
You can get lost even only looking at the wide, flat, uniform and fertile plain around Montagnana, while the roundish profiles of the Euganean hills appear at a distance together with the Berici hills.
An extraordinary glance at a town, Montagnana, that looks like an austere and imposing medieval castle, enclosed by impressive city walls made of terracotta bricks and Euganean trachyte.
Montanare is the town that has best preserved its Guelph tower with battlements in Veneto. Surrounded by a moat of lawn, spaced out by twenty-four 17-19 metre high towers, the impressive ring was built in the 1360-62 by the Carraresi family on previous defence structures.
Archaeological finds have told us a longer story though: this territory was most probably inhabited since the year 3000 b.C. by paleo-Venetian civilizations who changed it with the construction of fortified villages known as "motte". It is on one of these motte, probably the largest, that "Motta Aeniana" was developed, to later a strategic military fortress in subsequent centuries. Since then, the area was ruled by several different lords until, in 1405, it definitively passed under Venice, which reclaimed the entire territory all around the settlement and built patrician palaces and dwellings.
However, Montagnana has much more to offer in addition to the fortress: Saint Mary's Cathedral is one of the most important religious buildings, while the Monte di Pietà stands out among the finest civilian buildings, together with the turreted Cassa di Risparmio palace, the eighteenth-century House of Dolls (Casa delle Bambole), the Palazzo Pretorio, today town hall, and Magnavin-Foratti palace, with a splendid five-light window on the façade and small balconies made of Nanto stone.
Today Montagnana is an important agricultural and industrial town that recalls its medieval origins at every step among its noble palaces and villas, paved streets and wide arcades and galleries. The heritage of the past is celebrated every year in September when the medieval contest of the 10 communes of the Scodosia is held.(Foto by lluisanunez)