Who knows how many of you have heard of Bergamo and its High City, the famous historic center that dominates the city from a hill. What I want to talk about today, however, is the Lower Town, the Bergamo that developed outside the walls and over the centuries has "invaded" the plain around the Upper Town.
The center of Bergamo Bassa is located in Porta Nuova, and it is from here that you can leave for a tour of the main monuments. Just behind the propylaea of ​​Porta Nuova is the Monument to the Partisan, a sculpture by Giacomo Manzù, a well-known sculptor born and raised in Bergamo, who sculpted this work to remind future generations of the atrocities of war. Opposite the Monument to the Partisan is the Torre dei Caduti, built in the 20s and became the symbol of the Lower Town, while on the opposite side from the avenue leading to the Upper Town is the Donizetti theater, one of the most popular places from Bergamo. The Donizetti theater was built at the end of the XNUMXth century and immediately represented the center of Bergamo culture in the Lower Town. Initially it was called Teatro Riccardi, from the name of its builder, and only more than a century later it took the name of Teatro Donizetti, in honor of the famous composer Gaetano Donizetti from Bergamo.
Not far from the theater is the Church of St. Bartholomew, a typically baroque church that hides one of Lorenzo Lotto's most beautiful altarpieces, the “Martinengo” altarpiece. Continuing along via Tasso and reaching via Pignolo, one of the access roads to the Upper Town, you can instead admire the splendid buildings that characterize this street, and in the church of San Bernardino you will find another suggestive altarpiece also made by Lorenzo Lotto, the altarpiece " San Bernardino ”precisely.
Not far from the church is the Suardi park, the first city garden of Bergamo, where you can relax in the shade of some trees, and not far away is via san Tommaso, the street of art galleries. In addition to many small art workshops, in via San Tommaso there are the two art galleries of Bergamo, the GAMeC, Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, and the Accademia Carrara, one of the oldest art galleries in Italy. At the moment, however, the Carrara Academy is undergoing restoration. In order to continue your visit of the city you must therefore go to the Upper Town, in Piazza Vecchia, where, in the rooms of the Palazzo della Ragione, you can see the paintings of the Carrara collection that are shown in rotation and from where you can leave for a tour discovering the historic center of Bergamo.
