Camposampiero: where Saint Anthony spent his final days

In the summer of 1231 the friar who would become Saint Anthony of Padua came to rest at Camposampiero, a town on the plain north of Padua, as the guest of his friend Count Tiso. Here, in the weeks before his death, he is said to have preached to crowds beneath a great walnut tree and to have had his celebrated vision of the Christ Child. That brief stay turned this corner of the Veneto into one of the most important places of Antonian pilgrimage.

The Antonian sanctuaries

Two churches recall those events: the Sanctuary of the Walnut, completed in 1432 on the spot where the saint preached, and the Sanctuary of the Vision, built around the little cell where he prayed. Both are key stages on the Cammino di Sant'Antonio, the pilgrim route that retraces the saint's last journey towards Padua.

A medieval past

Roman in origin, Camposampiero grew in the Middle Ages as the seat of the da Camposampiero family, allies and later rivals of the fierce Ezzelini. Their old feudal stronghold survives as the Torre della Rocca, now part of the town hall, while the parish church of San Marco dates back to the 12th century. Today this is a busy town of around 11,800 people.

Getting there

Camposampiero stands roughly twenty kilometres north of Padua on the road to Castelfranco Veneto, well served by rail and within easy reach of Venice and the Venetian villas.