Udine

Udine is the historical capital of Friuli. The area has been inhabited since the Neolithic age, and was later, most likely, settled by Illyrians.

Based on an old Hungarian legend, Attila (?–453), the leader of the Huns, built a hill there, when besieging Aquileia, because he needed a winter quarters billet: he instructed his soldiers to bring soil in their helmet and shield, because, the landscape was too flat, without any hill. He established the town there, and built a square-shape tower.

Ferrara

The origin of Ferrara is uncertain, it was probably settled by the inhabitants of the lagoons at the mouth of Po river; there are two early centers of settlement, one round the cathedral, the other, the castrum bizantino, being the San Pietro district, on the opposite shore, where the Primaro empties into the Volano channel. Ferrara appears first in a document of the Lombard king Desiderius of 753 AD, as a city forming part of the Exarchate of Ravenna. Desiderius pledged a Lombard ducatus ferrariae ("Duchy of Ferrara") in 757 to Pope Stephen II.

Padua

Antiquity

Padua claims to be the oldest city in northern Italy. According to a tradition dated at least to the time of Virgil's Aeneid and to Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, Padua was founded in around 1183 BC by the Trojan prince Antenor. After the Fall of Troy, Antenor led a group of Trojans and their Paphlagonian allies, the Eneti or Veneti, who lost their king Pylaemenes to settle the Euganean plain in Italy.