Monselice is one of the most known walled cities in Veneto. In the first years of ‘500,had 5 orders of wall  and 4 doors fortift,became 7 in the centuries. The first defences was realized in VI century after Christ, in the Bizantini time which fortify the Rocca for stick up for Longobardi. in the following centuries and untill XVI century after Christ , the defensive site was improved ,alternate phases, according the military needs of the various dominations which competed for the territory. The 6th March 1239, remind us Rolandino da Padua, jurist and lettered in 1200, the emperor Federico II came to Monselice and ordered that the city was closed in a buffer by walls and towers matronly.

Afterwards the Scaligeri and Carraresi completed the walls which was expanded for 2 km,untill the height of Rocca. Monselice was considered the “ door of Padua”, for this reason was concerned in all the wars, more or less important, which was combatted in Veneto from VI to XVI century after Christ. After the defet of Agnadello ( Battaglia della Ghiarradadda year 1509) Venezia concentrated her attention on other fortress, more able to resist to the terrible fire weapons which was built in this period.

After the war in 1509, the defensive sistem untill the end of XV century, lost his military relevance and was assigned by the Republic of Venezia to some rich venetians : first to Marcello which acquired untill 1406 the public  goods and the residences carraresi and the Duodo which,at the end of XVI and begin of XVII century, built a villa in the rest of a  fortification called “Castello di S.Giorgio”.The versant hills, was terraced like garden and incised by infinity perron, respecting the rests of fortification. Only at the end of XVII century , the versants started to be attacked by trachyte cave; also in 1717 there was 7 inactive and 5 active. But only with the introduction of new      techniques, during the half of last century, the devastation became irreversible, in particulary  between the 1880 and 1923,when family Cini, after have acquired the propriety of one of the three cave at the time active, this situated in Monte of Ca’Marcello,realized the distruction of a part compact of the occidental versant, where in the periodo of High to Short Middle Ages was extended the military and civily settlement.

Unfortunately now there is not much of the  ancient impressiveness and beauty of the period. The ‘800 year saw the city of Monselice overlook to the modern epoch,but unfortunately in the time, the walls and tower of the medioevsl city was considered an obstacle to the urban spread and was drastically cut down. In the Rocca, instead the   trachyte cave “ gorged” the  east walls of the city, untill ride down the donjon in the height of the hill. For these reasons,in a few years, a good part of the wall and door was destroyed forever.

For some visitors in our days, Monselice was presented with relevant medioeval testimony, like Torre Civica, a lot of lines and especially the monumental complex of Castello and Torrione or Mastio Federiciano. The Mastio Federiciano reascend to XIII century. Now host a museum on the medioeval fortification.

Castle Cini

To the feet of the Hill of the Rocca (Stronghold) there is, in the all his majesty, an architectural complex named Castle Cini that groups in different buildings typology. Between the XI and the XVI century the Castle has been a courtly residence, defensive tower before coming a Venetian’s villa. The Castle is composed by four nucleus; the most ancient part is the Romanesque House (XI cent.) which with the Little Castle (XII cent.) it forms the first residential nucleus.

During the XIII century, it was built like a separate building , the Ezzeliniana’s Tower, a powerful defensive building wanted by Ezzelino III of Roman. Inside there are monumental fireplaces “at tower”, the only ones in Italy for shape and functionality, done building by the paduan power of Carrara in the XIV century.

In 1405, after the advent of the Serene Highness Venetian Republic, the complex is purchased by the Marcello’s aristocratic Venetian family who realises the construction of Ca’Marcello, a connection palace between the preexistent structures. The Marcello realised then the amplification of the intermediates alls of the Ezzeliniana Tower to extract a summer residence, used up to the beginning of Eight hundred it.

The venetian noble ones Marcello embellished the complex building on the levelling in front of the Tower, the building of the Library (XVI century); they reorganize the Venetian Courtyard (XVII century) and during 1700 added private family chapel. The fall of the Venetian’s Republic, happened at the end of the XVIII century, it marks a slow but progressive decline of the ancient Castle. The property of the Castle passes at last to different local families, like Girardi-Cini, without helping to raise and to regenerate the destinies of the complex. The grace blow is struck by the Royal Italian Army which during the First World War took advantage the Castle for military reasons, leaving it in 1919 entirely sacked and private citizen of all his treasures.

In 1935 the property passes by hereditary way to the Count Vittorio Cini, man of great taste and intellectual refiniment which luckily starts an accurate research of objects of furnishing (furniture, paintings, carpets, tapestries, ceramics, musical tools, and fabrics) and of weapons, returning inside the Castle the ancient medieval and renaissance atmosphere that still today receives the visitors of all the world in the residential halls and in the wide Armoury. Since 1981 the property of the monumental complex of Castle Cini has been passed to the Region Veneto, becoming officially a Regional Museum.

Longobard Antiquarium

To the ground floor of the Library of the Castle of Monselice the Museum Longobard Antiquarium has been organised in 1998. The Museum holds a little necropolis coming from the archaeological site sited in the Hill of the Rocca (Stronghold), along the run of the Mastio Federicano.

The Longobards, original Germanic population of the Scandinavia conquered Monselice in 602 A.D. with the King Agilulfo, taking possession besides of the ancient fortifications on the Hill of the Rocca (Stronghold).
The necropolis, of the first half of the VII century, it is formed by five graves with seven Longobard bodies of warrior and one of a child and by their grave goods to the interior.  The graves and the buried bodies recomposed in the present seat of the Museum, show faithfully the finding position. The rich grave goods is formed by weapons, by the “umbone” of a shild (the jutting central element of the shild), by personal objects (combs in bone, buckles and fixing of belt) and by a wonderful little cross in golden lamina, with decorations bringing back it justifies of woven animals.

The Museum is a strong departure point for the visit of the archaeological run of the Hill of the Rocca (Stronghold) and of the Museum to the summit of the Mastio Federicano.

The Sanctuary of the Seven Little Churches 

The Sanctuary is the most important religious monumental complex of Monselice.

On the sweet slope of the Hill of the Rocca (Stronghold), after the sight of the Parish of S.Giustina (the ancient Cathedral of Monselice), there is the most important religious monumental complex of Monselice. It’s the Sanctuary to Superannuate Seven Churches, format with six chapels in succession along the road in slope that goes up to the levelling in front of Villa Duodo, where the Church of S.Giorgio is.

The Seven votive Churches are the result of the project of the venetian noble Pietro Duodo, who had already built in this place the own residence, with attached private chapel. In 1605 he obtains from Pope’s Paolo the permission of building and entitling the Little Churches as the greatest seven Roman basilicas, obtaining the same privilege of the Plenary Indulgence.

The Sanctuary, realised by the architect Vincenzo Scamorzi, represents the Holy City in miniature to which one enters through a monumental door with the summit written “Romans Basilics Pares”, which it introduces to the Roman road. In the Little Churches there are six paintings of Palma il Giovane (1548-1628) with represented the corresponding Roman basilicas at the titling of each chapel. In the seventh church, that one of S.Giorgio, in 1651 there are carried by Rome the bodies of three martyrs and numerous relics. The introduction of new important relics,it  in 1713 introduces the family Duodo to add beside the church a true and own sanctuary in which to keep the Holy Bodies.

Villa Duodo

The Villa rises on the square where it ends the road of the Sanctuart, creating a very scenographic vision. Built towards the end of the XVI century from the architect Scamozzi, initially it was constituted by a only building to south. The second wing of the Villa, more imposing and in orthogonal position, was built in 1740. The square with in the centre the fountain in stone, is delimited on the side of the mountain by a flight of steps adorned by the statues of Four Season, works of the Paduan sculptor’s Antonio Bonazza (1698-1763). The scenographic flight of steps given to te Exedra of S.Francesco Saverio, with the cave-niche dedicated to the Holy one who stayed in 1537 in the city of Monselice.

Currently the Villa acts as detached seat of the University of Padua.