Cittadella

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Cittadella
coat of arms
Cittadella (Italy)
Cittadella
Country Italy
region Veneto
province Padua  (PD)
Coordinates 45 ° 39 '  N , 11 ° 47'  E Coordinates: 45 ° 39 '0 "  N , 11 ° 47' 0"  E
height 48  m slm
surface 36 km²
Residents 20,175 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density 560 inhabitants / km²
Post Code 35013
prefix 049
ISTAT number 028032
Popular name Cittadellesi
Patron saint San Prosdocimo
Website www.comune.cittadella.pd.it
Historic city center of Cittadella (2012)
Historic city center of Cittadella (2012)
View over the roofs of Cittadella (2006)

Cittadella is an Italian commune ( comune ) with 20,175 inhabitants (as of December 31, 2019) in the province of Padua , Veneto region . The city was founded in the 13th century as a military outpost of Padua . The cityscape is shaped by the almost completely preserved, well-renovated city wall that surrounds the historic city center.

history

Evidence of human settlement in the area where Cittadella was built dates back to the Bronze Age . In Roman times the land was parceled out and left to Roman veterans . 148 BC The Via Postumia was built as Decumanus maximus .

From the 11th century onwards, a number of rural lordships arose with small villages that were built around parish churches such as San Donato or around monasteries.

Cittadella was founded in 1220, at the time of the fighting between the city-states, by order of the city of Padua as a fortified outpost to defend its territory. Immediately after it was founded, the city became a reliable base against the power of the rural nobles such as the feudal aristocracy of Onara and Fontaniva .

In the second half of the 13th century, Cittadella had developed significantly and acquired great strategic importance for the surrounding area. For a short time the city was ruled by Ezzelino da Romano . In 1236 Padua granted her the right to its own statutes. In 1318 Cittadella fell under the rule of Cangrande I della Scala , the Lord ( Signore ) of Verona . When it returned to Padua, it was ruled by the lords of the Carrara family. During the 14th century, the importance of Cittadella continued to grow and the area of ​​influence increased.

In 1405 Cittadella asked voluntarily to join the Republic of Venice . In return, she was allowed to keep her own statutes. From 1483 Venice left the city to Roberto Sanseverino, under whose successors it remained until 1499, and for one year (1503-1504) it was handed over to Pandolfo Malatesta by contract .

When the League of Cambrai was concluded against the Venetian Republic in 1508 , Pandolfo Malatesta, ruler of Cittadella, sided with the enemy. Imperial troops attacked and sacked the city. Peace with Venice was not restored until 1516.

When the Reformation reached Italy around 1540 and spread, Asolo , Bassano del Grappa and also Cittadella had become centers of the Evangelicals in the somewhat more tolerant Republic of Venice . The new evangelical faith was shared and passed on rather subversively in the market, in workshops, in offices and in private homes. During the Council of Trent (1545–1563), at the time of the Counter Reformation , the Evangelicals were tracked down, fought against and eliminated , primarily by the Inquisition . In these three cities, eight evangelical notaries were charged and convicted of heresy , including Francesco Spiera in Cittadella.

After these conflicts, Cittadella enjoyed a good two centuries of peace until in 1797 French troops occupied the territory of the Republic of Venice. In the Treaty of Campo Formio on 17 October 1797 Austria ceded Venetia came in the Treaty of Pressburg on 26 December 1805 that of Napoleon Bonaparte founded Kingdom of Italy . Cittadella came to the department of Bacchiglione and for a time even to the province of Vicenza. The first Peace of Paris on May 30, 1814 indirectly brought Veneto back to Austria as part of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Veneto (its king was the Emperor of Austria in personal union ). With the Peace of Vienna on October 3, 1866 , Veneto and with it Cittadella finally came to the Kingdom of Italy .

The city fortifications

The city and its fortifications were built in the form of a polygon, which is crossed by two axes crossing each other at right angles, the Via Roma - Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, which runs approximately from north to south, and the West-Eastern street, Via Independenza - Via Guglielmo Marconi. The city wall has a circumference of 1,461 m and a diameter of around 450 m. Access is possible through four city ​​gates , which roughly correspond to the four cardinal points and are named after the larger towns that can be reached through them: Porta Bassanese ( Bassano del Grappa ) in the north, Porta Trevisana ( Treviso ) in the east, Porta Padovana ( Padua) to the south and Porta Vicentina ( Vicenza ) to the west.

The approximately 14 to 16 m high walls actually consist of two walls that have been backfilled with a solid core of stones and hot slaked lime and are around 2.10 m thick. 32 towers, large and small, built into the walls, a protective moat and drawbridges in front of the four gates served for better defense .

For better defense, the walls were accessible on different levels through connecting passages, some of which were made of masonry, some of which were also made of wood or simply ran along the embankment that surrounds the entire wall.

The walls are completely intact, except for one piece that was destroyed in the fighting with the League of Cambrai in the 16th century. The refined details of the construction are clearly visible. Up to seven different construction techniques, recognizable by the alternation of rows of brick and stone, were used.

One of the places in the fortified complex where the defensive function of the keep and the entrance gates is most clearly recognizable is the Rocca (fortress) di Porta Bassano at the northern gate. Inside the Rocca is the Casa del Capitano (Commandant's House). During the restoration, old frescoes from the period of the Carraresi, Malatesta, Sanseverino and Borromeo families were found, which give such a comprehensive account of the events between 1260 and 1600 that it can almost replace written documents.

The English poet Robert Browning said of Cittadella: "For these walls I would give up all of London."

  • City walls

  • North-eastern section of the city wall

  • Porta Vicentina

  • Porta Trevisana

  • the area from above

Restoration of the city fortifications

The maintenance and repair work lasted for twenty years, until the completion of the walk-through walkway was celebrated on June 8, 2013.

The work included the repair of the battlements, which were most severely damaged by the ravages of time, the restoration and protection of the 14 m high battlements and the creation of several entrances by erecting stairs in the gap, the installation of a staircase and one glass elevator in the Torre Porta Vicenza . Furthermore, stairs, wooden walkways and the glazed roof of the entrance to the Torresino church were laid out, as well as the construction of a connection between the Casa di Capitano and the Torre Porta Bassano . This gave the visitor views of the walls and the city.

Complete battlement

Since 2013 it has been possible to do a complete tour of the city wall at a height of around 15 m and thus get an overview of the medieval city center and views of the surroundings from different perspectives. The tour also includes a tour of museum facilities that explain the history of the city.

More Attractions

  • Dom

  • Parish Church of San Donato

  • Chiesa del Torresino

  • Torre di Malta

  • town hall

  • Palazzo Pretorio

  • Teatro Sociale

  • Teatro Sociale - auditorium

politics

Mayor of Cittadella is Massimo Bitonci ( Lega Nord ).

Twin cities

Personalities

sons and daughters of the town

Lived and worked in Cittadella

  • Bartolomeo Fonzi (≈1502–1562), Venetian Franciscan, Anabaptist and Protestant martyr in Venice, worked as a teacher from 1550–58

Sports

The local football club is AS Cittadella .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Statistiche demografiche ISTAT. Monthly population statistics of the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica , as of December 31 of 2019.
  2. ↑ Silvana Seidel Menchi: Heretics in Italy in the 16th century . In: Uwe Israel, Michael Matheus (ed.): Protestants between Venice and Rome in the early modern period (=  study series of the German study center in Venice ). Walter de Gruyter, 2013, ISBN 978-3-05-006326-3 , p. 25–46 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  3. ↑ Information IAT Cittadella: Citadella. Walk through history. Edited by the Provincia di Padova. 2016

Web links

Commons : Cittadella  - collection of images, videos and audio files