DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61893#0175
Ch. III.
THROUGH ITALY.
147
rod of a powerful usurper.* At length, in the
fifteenth ntury, Padua united itself to the Ve-
netian territory, and under the influence of its
own laws acknowledged the supreme authority of
that republic. The consideration that Venice
was founded by citizens of Padua, who flying from
the ravaging armies of Alaric and Attila took re-
fuge in the solitary isles of the Adriatic, might
perhaps have lightened the yoke of submission,
or facilitated the arrangements of union.
As fire and sword, aided by earthquakes and
pestilence, have been employed more than once
during so many ages of convulsion, in the de-
struction of Padua, we are not to expect many
monuments of the Roman colony, within its walls,
or to wonder so much at its decline as at its ex-
istence. However it is still a great, and in many
respects a beautiful city, as its circumference is
near seven miles, its population about fifty thou-
sand persons, and notwithstanding the general
narrowness of its streets, many of its buildings
both public and private, are truly magnificent.
* In the fourteenth century Padua owned the sway of the
Carrara family ; Pandolfo di Carrara was the friend of Pe-
trarca. This family and their rivals in power and place, the
Scaligeri were among the many patrons and supporters of
literature that graced Italy in that and the succeeding
centuries, i. 2
THROUGH ITALY.
147
rod of a powerful usurper.* At length, in the
fifteenth ntury, Padua united itself to the Ve-
netian territory, and under the influence of its
own laws acknowledged the supreme authority of
that republic. The consideration that Venice
was founded by citizens of Padua, who flying from
the ravaging armies of Alaric and Attila took re-
fuge in the solitary isles of the Adriatic, might
perhaps have lightened the yoke of submission,
or facilitated the arrangements of union.
As fire and sword, aided by earthquakes and
pestilence, have been employed more than once
during so many ages of convulsion, in the de-
struction of Padua, we are not to expect many
monuments of the Roman colony, within its walls,
or to wonder so much at its decline as at its ex-
istence. However it is still a great, and in many
respects a beautiful city, as its circumference is
near seven miles, its population about fifty thou-
sand persons, and notwithstanding the general
narrowness of its streets, many of its buildings
both public and private, are truly magnificent.
* In the fourteenth century Padua owned the sway of the
Carrara family ; Pandolfo di Carrara was the friend of Pe-
trarca. This family and their rivals in power and place, the
Scaligeri were among the many patrons and supporters of
literature that graced Italy in that and the succeeding
centuries, i. 2