Discovering the most important monuments of Bergamo city

Bergamo city hosts many museums: the museum of modern art and the historical botanical garden, but there are a lot of open air museums that deserve to be known, visited and photographed.

Starting from the Lower City, on the principal avenue called Papa Giovanni XXIII, the Propilaea of Porta Nuova are clearly visible. They are two twin buildings used as a monumental gate built in 1837 in Classical style. A little further, going on to the Upper City, there is the avenue called Sentierone, a paved boulevard on which some wonderful monuments overlook. On one side there is the civic theater dedicated to Gaetano Donizetti, and next to it a fountain, depicting the composer, is put. The church of San Bartolomeo and Santo Stefano is close to the theater and it stores the Pala Martinengo, a wood panel painted by Lorenzo Lotto. On the other side the war memorial entitled to Partisans made by the artist from Bergamo Giacomo Manzù in the Twentieth century and the the high memorial tower built in the honor of the soldiers dead during the first world war are set. Going on the way to the Upper City there are a lot of mansions and palaces built during the Nineteenth and Twentieth century. Now banks and offices are located into them, but they preserve their beauty.

The whole Upper City can be considered as one of the monuments of Bergamo because it is an old borough totally preserved and kept as it was in the past.

The walls around the old city are the simble of the Venetian domination on the territory in addition to the Castle of San Vigilio and the Rocca, both meaning the need of militar security of the city. There are many churches on the hill, among them the most important are the church of Santa Maria Maggiore that hosts the Donizetti’s tomb and it was garnished by some artists during the centuries as instance Lorenzo Lotto, the Duomo and the church of San Michele al Pozzo Bianco, in part also painted by Lotto. Other amazing monuments close to Piazza Vecchia are the Baptistery, the Colleoni chapel, the Palazzo della Ragione and the Campanone Tower that strikes 100 tolls at 10 o’clock, the time at which the doors of the walls of the old city were been closed in the past.

There is another tower in the Lower City, that is the Galgario Tower. It was part of the ancient walls called Muraine which enclosed the Lower part of the city.

These are some of the monuments of Bergamo that we suggest you to visit because they give you emotions simply looking at them and even more knowing their history and exploring their inner part.