"The city is all enclosed with bastions. The fortress, with its three-mile circuit, is beautiful' - Alvise Grimani, speaking of Città Alta
Discovering Piazza Vecchia, the beating heart of Bergamo - It arose from the demolition of medieval houses and shops between 1440 and 1493, is the quintessential symbol of the Upper Town. A Renaissance space that reconstructs the horizontality of the ground, it has at its centre the famous fountain, donated in 1780 by podestà Alvise II Contarini. In addition, on the north-east side of the square is the Palazzo Nuovo, the former town hall, which today boasts frescoes depicting grotesques and allegorical subjects from the painter Baschenisas well as numerous valuable marble sculptures.
It currently houses the civic library, which holds 500,000 volumes, including some that are extremely rare due to their age. To the left of the building is the Baroque portal of the former church of S. Michael of the Archbuilt in ancient times on the structures of a Roman building. The airy interior of this structure, rich in stucco and gilding, contains numerous valuable frescoes.
The magic of Piazza Vecchia
On the north-western side of the square is the palace of the Venetian Podestà, built in 1340, depicts inside on the first floor a loggia with pillars and a coffered ceiling. Between the windows were depicted seven philosophers (only three recovered and restored) are placed today in the Palace of Reason, which occupies the other fountain in the square. Built in the mid-12th century, it underwent major transformations over the centuries, leading to a vaulted ground loggia and a large upper hall with a central Venetian-style window, surmounted by the lion of St. Mark. The upper hall contains frescoes from the 14th and 15th centuries from churches and town houses.
If you want to know more interesting facts about Piazza Vecchia and the Upper Town, read here: What to see in the Upper Town
