With these verses Virgil canonized definitively the Antenor legend, alluding to the burial of the Trojan hero, in the city he founded, Padua.

This tradition was revived in 1274 when emerged, during the works for the construction of a home for foundlings, a marble containing a double cypress coffin and lead, that metric inscription on bronze plate indicating belonging to the legendary founder of the city.

The judge, poet, pre-humanism, Lovato dei Lovati, promoter of the works, therefore thought that he luckily came across the precious remains of the Trojan prince so much that he proposed to place the sarcophagus near the S. Lorenzo Church, in front of his own house.

The ceremony took place in a s solemn about 10 years later when the remains found were placed inside the newsstand, that we can still admire in the city center.

In 1334 Alberto della cala did reopen the ark and on this occasion would be found a golden sword that the Paduan people would have succumbed to Alberto Scaligero.

In 1995 the City of Padua during some restoration of the monumetal coplex, including the Antenor Ark and the Tomb of Lovato dei Lovati, spotted a rectangular piece of 20x58,5 cm, perfectly squared and hidden by a layer of grease, accumulated over the years. Through this piece you could glimps inside the sarcophagus a wooden box, whose lid was clearly torn and thrown to one side.

In the coffin lay an incomplete skeleton. The skull was located outside of the case and presented an impressive hole in the front, definitely caused by stab while the foremen magnum seemed to have been expanded mechanically. Also present a femur of another person, female bone, a fragment of fetal side, a small remnant of wildlife.

A bone fragment was sent to Tuzìxon in Arizona for the examination of carbon, which showed that the remains belong to a man who lived between the third and fourth centuries AD.

This finding leads to exclude forever that the bones contained in the sarcophagus can be Antenor.

Piazza Antenore
35121   Padova   (PD)