Abano Terme historical timeline

Origins

The springs were in use long before Rome, and under the Romans became Aquae Patavinae, a substantial cure centre serving Patavium -- Padua -- with an oracle attached to the spring god Aponus. The Latin poets knew it: Claudian wrote a poem about the waters.

Turning points

Neighbouring Montegrotto preserves the physical evidence -- excavated Roman pools, channels and a small theatre -- which is the clearest surviving picture of what the ancient complex was.

Influential people

Use continued through the Middle Ages and under Venetian rule from 1405, when the baths drew patients from across the Republic, though the town remained small.

Cultural evolution

The Montirone, the low hill at the centre of the town where the principal springs rise, was laid out as a formal park in the eighteenth century and is where modern Abano begins.

Present-day significance

The transformation is twentieth-century: systematic hotel building from the post-war years turned Abano and Montegrotto into a single thermal district of around a hundred establishments, and the mud was studied, standardised and eventually given its own certification as a therapeutic preparation.