Walls of Padua, City walls in Padua, Italy

The Walls of Padua consist of four distinct construction phases built over time, running along the path of the Bacchiglione River. Multiple gates pierce the defensive line and once served as control points where merchants and travelers passed through to reach the city center.

The walls developed in four phases: Roman remains survive only in palace foundations, the 13th-century circuit was built from 1195 by the Comune of Padua using the Tronco Maestro and Naviglio Interno as ditches, and the 14th-century Carraresi walls were largely demolished during the War of the League of Cambrai. The 16th-century bastioned system was built by the Venetian Republic with Bartolomeo d'Alviano's contribution between 1513 and 1515, combining walls, water and open ground.

Porta Savonarola, finished in 1530 to a design by Giovanni Maria Falconetto, carries a frieze with the Lion of Saint Mark, the emblem of the Venetian Republic, which still survives. Its counterpart at Porta san Giovanni lost the same frieze during the Napoleonic Wars. Porta Ognissanti, the river-trade terminus toward Venice, has an outer facade of white Istrian marble with four pairs of columns, four trachyte cannonballs on the architrave, and a clock on a Nanto-stone torrino since 1535.

The walls form an irregular circuit around the historic centre, with the western flank protected by the canal still called the fossa Bastioni. Most gates survive, but a section was demolished in the 1960s for the new Ospedale Civile. The gates are best reached on foot or by bicycle along the embankments.

The upper floors of Porta Molino were repurposed as a water reservoir in the late 1800s to supply the city's first clean drinking water. This practical adaptation shows how the medieval structure was modified to meet growing urban needs.