Niccolò da Carrara

Niccolò da Carrara (1282–1344), son of Ubertino il Vecchio, was a Paduan noble who bet on the Scaligeri of Verona against his own kinsmen who ruled Padua. He began on the other side: in 1320 he helped hold Padua against a Scaliger attack, and in 1322 he was podestà and captain of war at Bologna.

He then followed a pro-Scaliger policy and plotted against his kinsman Marsilio, lord of Padua, in 1327. Marsilio thwarted the plot, jailing Niccolò's friends but leaving him free, and in 1328 gave Padua up to Cangrande della Scala. In 1335 Niccolò became rector of the Guelph party at Parma.

He died at Chioggia in 1344 and was buried in Padua's Sant'Agostino church. His son Giacomo II took power in Padua a year later.