Pavia

Pavia, a city of Italy, on the Ticino, two miles above its junction with the Po, and 22 miles S. of Milan by railway. The greater part of the ramparts, 3-1/2 miles in circumference, remains. The basilica of San Michele, recently restored, is a fine example of Lombardic architecture, dating probably from the 7th century. The Duomo, begun 1488 and still unfinished, contains the tombs of St. Augustine and Boetius. The palace of the Visconti, a quadrangle of immense size, begun in 1360, was much injured by the French in 1527, who at the beginning of the century had robbed the castle of its antiquarian treasures. The university, said to have been founded as a school by Charlemagne, was reconstituted in 1361. Pavia (called Ticinum up to the end of the 7th century) was founded by Gauls during the first Gallic immigration. It was the capital of the Lombard kingdom in the 7th and 8th centuries. In the struggles of the Guelphs and Ghibellines it usually sided with the latter, owing to jealousy of Milan, till in 1360 it passed to the Visconti family. Near this city Francis I. of France was defeated and taken prisoner in 1525.