The life and times of Giambattista Morgagni, F. R. S. 1682-1771
On a northern plain of Lombardy, backed by the Euganean hills and festooned with gardens and vineyards stands the old city of Padua. Its gleaming towers and Byzantine domes1 reflect a history whose origins are lost in antiquity. A thriving city in Roman times, the birthplace of Livy (50 b.c.), it suffered severely from the invasions of the barbarians for it stood directly in the way of the restless migrations of peoples from east to west. Along the Adriatic coast ran the great Roman road, south and west to Altinum, Concordia, Aquileia and the pass of ‘ Fontes frigidae ’ ; along this route surged Attila and the Huns, the Lombards, Franks and Hungarians leaving behind them a trail of devastation. The Middle Ages saw Padua, a Guelfic commune, struggling against local tyrants and an infinite variety of combines of neighbouring jealous towns, rising to fame under the rule of beneficent princes, declining in shame from the persecution of cruel and inhuman tyrants and eventually condemned to mediocrity as Venice rose to world power. Within its walls lived and died a saint, Anthony, the most celebrated of the followers of St Francis of Assissi. Here, too, flowered the genius of the Florentine Giotto and the Padovan Mantegna.