Michel de L’Hospital, William Harvey, Nikolaus von Kues ...

These are just some of the scientists, jurists, humanists, parliamentarians and doctors portrayed in the Sala dei Quarànta picture gallery. The canvases painted in 1942 by Gian Giacomo dal Forno commemorate forty illustrious foreign students who attended the university. Among these there were anatomists who gave their names to certain parts of the body, like Spiegel’s hepatic lobe and Wirsung’s pancreatic duct.

The gallery is also home to Galileo Galilei’s chair. He taught in Padua at the end of the sixteenth century, a time he later said was “the best eighteen years of my entire life”. It is said that the students built the imposing structure, originally upholstered in fabric and cushions, so that Galileo could teach in the nearby Aula Magna, the great hall that was the only space large enough to accommodate the crowds he drew to his lectures.

Galileo’s chair is so humble in appearance that it was nearly destroyed. During the refurbishment of the Aula Magna, in the mid-1800s, Rector Giuseppe de Menghin decided to throw it away.

Students and faculty had rather a different opinion. They called the Venetian authorities, who persuaded the Rector to save the chair but it had already been dismantled. De Menghin was not particularly cooperative, and it took some time to restore the artefact. At the end of the task, it became apparent that one of the two side steps had been lost.

The gallery also displays a replica of Galileo’s fifth lumbar vertebrae, no less. It is said that in 1737, when the scientist’s body was exhumed, those present took the opportunity to remove a small souvenir each – luckily there weren’t too many people there! The vertebra thus reached Padua University and was kept here for some time, before being stored in a safe place.