Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua

Padua calls it simply "il Santo", and the basilica built over the tomb of St Anthony is one of the great pilgrimage churches of Europe. Its skyline is unforgettable and unlike anything else in Italy: a cluster of domes, raised high on drums in the manner of St Mark's in Venice, crowd together above a brick body of gables, buttresses and slender belfries that recall minarets. Work began around 1232, only a year after the Franciscan preacher's death, and was essentially finished by 1310, but the building kept growing for another century and a half, so that a Romanesque and Byzantine core carries Gothic aisles and a French-style ring of nine radiating chapels around the apse. The broad brick façade, with its deep recesses and arcaded gallery, looks onto a square where Donatello's bronze equestrian statue of the condottiero Gattamelata stands on its tall plinth.

Donatello also made the high altar: a bronze Madonna and Child with six saints and four reliefs of the saint's miracles, crowded with figures and deep perspective. Nearby stands Andrea Briosco's Easter candelabrum of 1515, reckoned his masterpiece. The saint himself lies in his own transept chapel, where he has rested since 1350; its marble walls carry high reliefs of his miracles by Tullio Lombardo, Girolamo Campagna and others, with statues by Tiziano Aspetti. Behind the choir, the Baroque Treasury Chapel, begun in 1691 by Filippo Parodi, a pupil of Bernini, holds his relics, including the saint's tongue and chin in a gold reliquary.

The basilica is also a treasury of 14th-century painting. Opposite the saint's chapel, the Chapel of St James, commissioned in the 1370s by Bonifacio Lupi, is covered with Altichiero da Zevio's frescoes of the life of St James and a large Crucifixion, and the Chapel of Blessed Luca Belludi holds frescoes by Giusto de' Menabuoi; both are part of the UNESCO site of Padua's 14th-century fresco cycles, inscribed in 2021. Elsewhere are a 1396 statue of the Madonna Mora, named for her dark hair and complexion, a 14th-century fresco of the Madonna del Pilastro, and the tomb of Gattamelata himself. Music has deep roots here too: Giuseppe Tartini was the basilica's maestro di cappella in the 18th century.

Getting there

The basilica is in the historic centre of Padua, less than a kilometre from the heart of the old town. The nearest airport is Treviso (TSF), about 37 km away; Venice's main airport is also within reach. The basilica is an active shrine.