PADUA, Italy - You can't really get lost in Padua.

The place isn't all that big, for one thing, and the main sites of interest are concentrated in the compact heart of the old town, within easy walking distance of the railroad station and one another. Most important, Padua's patron saint - and most famous resident - is St. Anthony.

One of the most beloved of Italian saints, St. Anthony is credited with many miracles, but his particular saintly specialty is finding lost things of all sorts. Since this presumably also includes disoriented tourists, visitors can feel free to relax and wander unworriedly through the streets of old Padua.

A humble man who modeled himself after St. Francis of Assisi, St. Anthony died in 1231. He was canonized within 18 months of his death, and work began immediately on a church to hold his venerated remains. Over the centuries the building was rebuilt, enlarged, and beautified many times but almost always in a different style.

The result is an enormous and imposing but rather bizarre looking multidomed basilica that blends Byzantine, Gothic, and Romanesque elements. From some angles it looks like St. Mark's in Venice, from others a Turkish mosque. There's no other building in Italy quite like it.

Designed to accommodate throngs of pilgrims, the interior of the church is vast and echoing. The main altar at the end of the long nave has fine 15th-century reliefs by Donatello depicting St. Anthony curing the sick and performing other miracles. The saint's tomb is in a candlelit side chapel, the walls of which are covered with votive photos and tokens put there by people who credit him with keeping them from harm or answering their prayers.

By the way, the traditional formal prayer to invoke St. Anthony's aid in finding anything gone astray is:

"Dear St. Anthony, please come 'round.

Something's lost and can't be found."

There is also a less reverent version, long favored by parochial school children, that goes:

"Tony, Tony. Listen', listen!

Tony, Tony. Somethin's missin'!"

The large square in front of the basilica, Piazza del Santo, is one of Padua's principal gathering places. On St. Anthony's feast day, June 13, pilgrims from all over Europe and the world fill the church and pack the piazza with the overflow.

Even on an ordinary sunny Sunday, the square is a lively place. Dozens of small stalls selling a variety of religious goods (St. Anthony key chains are a popular item) circle the basilica, and the piazza's perimeter is rimmed with busy outdoor cafes. There is no statue of St. Anthony in the square named for him but there is an impressive equestrian one by Donatello of the mercenary soldier Gattamelata, the first large work in bronze of the Renaissance.

Padua also attracts a lot of artistic pilgrims. In fact, the only reason some visitors come here is to see the marvelous frescoes by Giotto in the Capella degli Scrovegni. The chapel was commissioned in 1303 by Enrico Scrovegni to atone for the sins of his father, a money lender so rapacious and vicious that he was denied Christian burial and is one of the damned mentioned in Dante's "Inferno."

The frescoes - depicting the life of Mary, the life of Jesus, the Passion, and the Last Judgment - are considered by art historians and scholars (Sister Wendy among them, of course) as masterpieces that mark the beginning of Western art. In contrast to the rigid, stylized painting of the early Middle Ages, Giotto's approach is relaxed and humanistic: The people he represents, from shepherds to saints, are three-dimensional, have feelings, and show them.

The chapel walls are covered with the Giotto frescoes, arranged in three tiers of successive panels like a sort of medieval comic book. The colors are mostly warm, glowing pastels that contrast with a rich blue background. The frescoes are lovely to look at but getting to look can take a while: The chapel is small, the number of visitors allowed in is limited, and there can be a wait to enter.

The Capella Scrovegni is in a pleasant public garden, next to the ruins of the Roman arena. It's part of a complex that includes the Civic Museum, housed in the former Monastery of the Eremitani.

While not in the same class as the Uffizi in Florence or the Accademia in Venice, the Eremitani is a superb and relatively undervisited museum. It has an archeological section and one of the world's largest coin collections, but the main attraction is the Pinoteca, a wonderful art gallery with a particularly good selection of paintings by noted artists of the local Veneto school, including Giotto, Bellini, and Tintoretto.

The museum complex also includes the monastic church of the Eremitani, which was almost destroyed in an air raid in 1944. The church has been rebuilt but only sad fragments of the renowned 15th-century frescoes by Mantegna depicting the lives of St. James and St. Christopher remain.

It's only about a mile from the Civic Museum to Piazza del Santo, a pleasant walk that takes you through Padua's medieval core, which is dominated by its ancient university. Founded in 1221, the University of Padua is the second oldest in Italy. Consistently progressive, in the 16th century Padua built Europe's first permanent anatomy theater for its medical school and in the 17th century became the first university in the world to admit women.

Named for the medieval inn that once stood on the site, the main university block is known as the Bo, or the Ox. Attesting to its antiquity, the Bo's gateways, lecture halls, and inner courtyard are encrusted with four centuries' accumulation of coats of arms of illustrious graduates and patrons. Guided tours of the Bo are available on weekdays, and highlights include the lectern Galileo used when he taught physics here from 1592 to 1610, and the proudly preserved anatomy theater.

Not far from the Bo are the two central squares of Padua, Piazza della Fruta and Piazza della Erbes, the sites of the daily fruit and vegetable markets. Separating the two squares is the remarkable Palazzo Ragione, commonly referred to as the Salon.

Built in the early 13th century as law courts and a meeting place for the city council, the Salon was one of the architectural triumphs of its day. The grand second story assembly room is more than 260 feet long and is the largest undivided medieval hall in Europe. The walls of the hall are covered with colorful 15th-century frescoes depicting the signs of the zodiac, the months of the year, and seasonal activities.