Prato della Valle is a great oval form square surrounded by the channel you see. It is the largest square in Padova and one of the largest in Europe. There are many sculptures on the channel sides. These sculptures are representations of culture and art personalities. The third Sunday of every month there’s an open air market here.

Prato della Valle has occupied a place in the hearts and sympathies of Padovans who frequently refer to it simply as The Square. At various times it was also known as the square without grass because the number of trees prevented much grass from growing there. Today, however, it is completely covered with grass, as all but one of the trees has died.

It is open (summer daily 8.30 am - noon & 3 - 7 pm; winter Mon - Fri closes 5.30 pm, Sat closes 6.45 pm, Sun closes 7.30 pm). A pair of fifteenth-century griffins, one holding a knight and the other a lion, are the only notable adornments to the unclad brick facade; the freezing interior has little of interest except a huge Martyrdom of St Justina by Paolo Veronese (in the apse), some highly proficient carving on the choir stalls, and the sarcophagus which once contained the relics of Luke the Evangelist (apse of left transept).

More appealing are the vestiges of the church's earlier incarnations. In the right transept a stone arch opens onto the Martyrs' Corridor, a composite of fifth- to twelfth-century architectural fragments that leads to the Sacellum di Santa Maria e San Prosdocimo , burial place of St Prosdocimus. He was the first bishop of Padua back in the fourth century, when the church was founded, and is depicted here on a fifth-century panel. The fifteenth-century old choir , reached by a chain of corridors from the left-hand chapel of the right transept, has choir stalls inset with splendid marquetry panels.

Back to Explore Padua