The Bo Palace housed the university campus from 1539 and architecturally represents one of the
oldest and most majestic buildings in Padua. The Palace is divided into two structures, the first
being the Old Courtyard, which once housed the Hospitium Bovis , an inn located in the city’s
meatpacking district during the medieval period. The namesake of the Bo Palace thus preserves the
history of the medieval inn that once stood in the same location.
The second structure of the Palace was the result of restorations carried out between the end of the
nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century in the space once occupied by the
sixteenth century Palazzo Battaglia-Capodivacca, whose architectural features have been preserved
and can be seen overlooking Via San Francesco today. The current appearance of this portion of the
Bo Palace was made possible by former university rector Carlo Anti, who, from 1932 to 1943,
redefined the appearance and functions of the Palace. Anti commissioned architect Ettore Fagiuoli
to design the exterior of the New Courtyard, while the Milanese architect Giò Ponti was
commissioned to oversee the interior design of the Palace’s rooms and the rectorate with the help of
other famous Italian artists during the period.
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2,447 plays 0The Bo Palace housed the university campus from 1539 and architecturally represents one of the oldest and most majestic buildings in Padua. The Palace is divided into… -
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838 plays 0The construction of the Old Courtyard in the Bo Palace started in 1547 under the leadership of Andrea Moroni, the architect from Bergamo, in the area where the… -
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818 plays 0The Great Hall is considered the state room of the University of Padua. From the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century, it housed the Faculty of Law and was also… -
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324 plays 0The monumental New Courtyard, originally called “Cortile Littorio” (the Fascist Courtyard), is the heart of the twentieth-century wing of the Bo Palace.… -
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405 plays 0Over three thousand heraldic coats of arms, frescoed and in stone, adorn the loggias of the Old Courtyard and the walls of various rooms in the Bo Palace. These coats… -
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930 plays 0Many rooms in the Bo Palace also still retain evidence of the site’s early origins, such as the Hall of Medicine, which used to be a floor of the royal palace… -
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545 plays 0The Hall of Forty derives its name from the forty portraits of illustrious international scholars, who all made groundbreaking contributions in their respective fields… -
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301 plays 0The New Courtyard also features more recent works of art. In 1992, Giò Pomodoro created the Spirale per Galileo Galilei (Spiral for Galileo), which currently… -
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392 plays 0The statue of Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, the first woman in the world to have received a university degree, can be seen at the foot of the stairs when exiting… -
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403 plays 0Many works of art can be seen in the New Courtyard of the Bo Palace. Among them are the stars in the Atrium of Heroes, dedicated to the fallen heroes from the wars… -
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1,766 plays 0This space was used in the past for the preparation of corpses to be dissected and analyzed during laboratory classes in Medicine and Anatomy. The phrase MORS UBI…