The Baptistery, Piazza Duomo, Città Alta

Posted on 20/05/2014 by Michael

The Baptistery in Piazza Duomo, Città Alta, Bergamo must be the most peripatetic Baptistery in the world. It might not have travelled far but it moved often. Starting out inside the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore it was moved to two other places in the vicinity of the Piazza Duomo before ending up in its present location at the end of the 19th century.

It was designed in the 14th century by Giovanni da Campione. He was also commissioned to build the porch over the two, north and south, entrances to the Basilica as well as the ‘side’ entrance tucked away in a corner to the left of the red lions holding up the north porch.

I found it difficult to find out very much about Campione as the majority of work attributed to him seems to be connected to the already mentioned structures in Bergamo. It seems that all his efforts there took place in the period, roughly, between 1420 and the late 1460s. Where he came from, when he was born, where he went afterwards and when he died is still a mystery to me.

The Basilica lost its status as the baptismal church once the Cathedral was completed and that prompted the first move, out into the cold of the courtyard where it remained for a couple of hundred years before making its next couple of journeys.

It’s difficult to see the thinking of Campione in designing such a large structure to place inside the even larger Santa Maria Maggiore as it must have looked out-of-place from the start. Not only did he design the octagonal building, the statues on the outside (representing the Three Theological Virtues – Faith, Hope and Charity; the Four Cardinal Virtues, Temperance, Justice, Prudence and Fortitude; with the addition of Patience to make the eight to fill the available niches) he created the marble bas-reliefs and statues inside as well as the font.

Considering its age and the number of times it has been moved it’s in a remarkably good condition, as can be witnessed by the intricate carved marble on the entrance arch.

The Baptistery, Piazza Duomo, Città Alta – Door Arch

Normally the building is not accessible unless being used for actual baptisms – when the private nature of the function means that visiting is not really on the cards. However, in my visit to Bergamo in May 2014 there seemed to be crowds of either Italian school children or pensioners going inside on private, guided visits almost every time I passed by.

During the first I came across, a school visit by primary children, I was able to get inside and have a look, quickly taking some pictures before the guide had the chance to break off from her talk to the children and throw me out. Unfortunately unless you are bare-faced and opportunistic there seems to be little opportunity to get a close-up look at Campione’s craftsmanship.

The colours inside, not unsurprisingly, mirror those on the outside. As well as a statue of John the Baptist, standing facing the font and the entrance under a bas-relief of The Crucifixion, there are seven other bas-reliefs in marble depicting the normal story of Christ from pre-conception to death.

The Baptistery, Piazza Duomo, Città Alta – Interior

The Piazza Duomo has grand buildings on all sides and the Baptistery is very much the smallest but it seems to fit into its present location and now looks as if it belongs where it took more than 500 years to arrive.

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Santa Grata Inter Vites – Macabre Paintings

Posted on 20/05/2014 by Michael

Santa Grata – Macabre Paintings

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Santa Grata Inter Vites – Macabre Paintings

Leaving through the Porta di San Alessandro in the north-western section of the walls of Città Alta, and walking just a little beyond the bottom funicular station that takes you up to San Vigilio (the highest point to look down on Bergamo) you’ll arrive, on the right going downhill, at the narrow street of Via Borgo Canale. A couple of hundred metres down this road, on the left hand side, is the church of Santa Grata Inter Vites, home to the macabre paintings by the local painter Paulo Vincenzo Bonomini (1757-1839).

Along with the Romanesque church of San Michele al Pozzo Bianco, the Santa Grata is one of the places that I think is a must on any visited to the Città Alta of Bergamo. Not that there’s not a lot of interest around the Piazza Duomo but these two churches offer the opportunity to see something unusual and on a scale that’s a little more human. Cathedrals were constructed to make the individual feel small, the Romanesque frescoes and the macabre paintings in these locations were designed to make the individual think of his/her place in the world.

Macabre paintings date back to the 14th century but few examples from that time have survived. There’s speculation as to why this form of depiction of ‘life’ was chosen in the first place. Some argue that it was in response to the Black Death that wiped out anything from a third to a half of the population of Europe in the thirteen hundreds. Others argue it was to depict the constant struggle that humans have with Death, even though in that battle there will only be, and can only be, one winner.

Whatever the original reason for their becoming widespread during the medieval period Bonomini chose this style when he was commissioned to create a series of paintings in his local parish church in 1800. The fact that Europe was then embroiled in the biggest and most widespread war up to that time, with country after country falling to the Empire of the Corsican upstart and usurper of the gains of the French Revolution, might well have influenced his theme.

Bonomini couldn’t have been more of a local choice of artist for the commission. He was born in the same street at No 10 and was baptised in Santa Grata church on Christmas Day 1757 (Gaetano Donizetti, of bel canto opera fame, and the cellist Alfredo Piatti were also both born in Via Borgo Canale and baptised in this church).

There are six paintings in total, located behind the altar, and can be seen by the congregation between the pillars and the silverware.

One depicts a country couple, the man sitting down, with agricultural produce in their hands or on the ground, perhaps on their way to market.

Santa Grata – Rustic Couple

Another is of a better dressed bourgeois couple simply out for a stroll. This follows the idea from many pre-Renaissance frescoes that Death had no respect for class.

Santa Grata – Bourgeois Couple

One is of a drummer dressed in the uniform of the National Guard and another of a carpenter, walking to a job with the tools of his trade.

Santa Grata – Drummer

Santa Grata – Carpenter

Of the last two one depicts a couple of priests (they were more than likely destined for Hell after their death) and what is considered a ‘self-portrait’ of Bonomini, an artist standing at an easel painting Death, with his wife on one side and an assistant on the other.

Santa Grata – Priests

Santa Grata – Artist

I like these paintings because they are different and not something I seen many times although there is a small collection, with the same idea of embracing everyone regardless of class or status, in the Adriano Bernareggi Diosesan Museum of Sacred Art.

These are, for me, the main reason for visiting this church but there are a few other points of interest. There’s what looks like a recently re-discovered fresco of a breast-feeding Madonna to the right of the altar.

On my last visit I was also directed to what I assume is the sacristy (the room where the priest prepares for the mass). This has a painted, mock wood ceiling and around the top of the walls are representations of the Virtues as well as one of Death castigating some poor individual. I’ve not been able to find out anything more of these paintings, i.e., by whom or when they were created. Next door was what can be only described as a store-room of church paraphernalia – statues of the Madonna, angels, crucifixes and other material that would be used on feast days or other special occasions.

Outside, to the left of the main entrance, fixed to the wall of the church is a war memorial. Originally placed there to commemorate the fallen in the First World War two additional plaques were added after 1945. What is interesting about these plaques is that the majority of those who didn’t return to the parish were killed or went missing on the Eastern Front, at the hands of the Soviet Red Army.

Location: in Via Borgo Canale, opposite the steps of San Gottardo.

Access: I was told, by one of the women who was preparing the flowers for a special service that coming weekend, that the church is open to visitors every Sunday from 08.30 to midday. The Tourist Information Office told me something else (which wasn’t even close to reality) and a local shop keeper gave another suggestion which didn’t seem to fit the facts either. However, if you’re not around on a Sunday see if anyone is moving around in the courtyard to the left of the church – there’s a very substantial iron grill at the street side. Begging might get you entrance. To the best of my knowledge they don’t charge. A book has recently been produced (€10) which provides more information about the church and its decoration (which I didn’t buy).

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San Michele al Pozzo Bianco – Bergamo

Posted on 19/05/2014 by Michael

San Michele al Pozzo Bianco

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San Michele al Pozzo Bianco – Bergamo

The small church of San Michele al Pozzo Bianco, on Via Porta Dipinta, just about 200 metres down the hill from the Piazza Mercato della Scarpe (where the top station of the funicular is located) in Città Alta, Bergamo, without a shadow of a doubt houses the finest collection of en situ Romanesque religious paintings in the city. Covering the period from the early 12th to the late 16th centuries its possible, in this one small building, to get an idea of the evolution not only of the artistic styles but also the way of thinking of the population during that 500 year period. For some reason unknown to me it rarely gets mentioned in any of the tourist material, either on paper or online.

Close to the place where most tourists arrive in Città Alta (the cable railway from the lower town) the San Michele suffers from one major disadvantage in attracting visitors – the walk down is not so much of a problem but the walk up is. That means that on all the occasions I’ve been there I have mostly had the place to myself. Contrast this to the Duomo or the Santa Maria Maggiore where, if you arrive at the wrong time, there may be large group after an even larger group of organised and guided Italian children or pensioners as well as groups brought to Bergamo by the major foreign tour companies who are ‘doing’ the city in a day.

Unfortunately all of them are missing out on a little gem but if you make the effort to go down the hill you’ll be rewarded by a peaceful and quiet art gallery where you can take your time, quietly taking in the frescoes, in the cool of one of the oldest structures in Città Alta.

The Nave

It’s on record that there was a church of some kind on this spot from as early as 774 AD but it has gone through a number of reincarnations to get where it is now. As tastes changed some of the older frescoes were covered by a new layer of plaster and frescoes painted on that. That wouldn’t be such a problem if it was just a matter of covering the old so that they could make way for the new. However, in order to prevent the new layer of plaster just slipping down to the floor the workmen had to key the new plaster to the wall, this meant having to basically destroy (or at least mutilate) the older frescoes and that’s way when restoration work uncovers the past they are very often either deeply scratched or pitted where the hammer has made an anchor point for the new layer.

So there’s an element of evolution of styles and the way of telling the Bible story. Personally I have come to like the older, more naïve frescoes. They are primitive, lack perspective very often but tell a better story. In the San Michele church some of the oldest to be seen are on the back wall of the nave where you’ll find depictions of the serpent tempting Eve with the forbidden fruit and the Damned chained together being taken by the Devil’s servants to spend eternity paying for their sins on Earth. One of their number includes a Bishop, with his mitre, thus showing that at the time of the final judgement even the church hierarchy will not be immune.

The road to Hell

At a time when the church was all-powerful and dominated the lives of the ordinary people I like the way that the local artists were allowed to make such statements in the very places that the priests would have been preaching. The fact that few of them changed their ways even with these images directly in front of them everyday just goes to show their hypocrisy in peddling the myths upon the vast majority of the population.

It’s this literal interpretation of the Bible story that I find quite charming, made by artists who probably DID believe in what they were being told for a congregation that DID fear what would befall them after death.

Frescoes from different centuries

In places, in both the nave and in the crypt downstairs, the restoration process has taken the plaster back to the original but also decisions have been made to preserve some of the later works if they had been considered worthy of preservation. Where the different periods meet can be seen directly in front of you when reaching the bottom steps into the crypt, the remains of the 13th century pictures being seen next to those from the 15th. To the right of that alcove an earlier marble pillar, from the original structure has also been uncovered.

Saint with spectacles

In the crypt, in a fresco that dates from around the 15th century, is something I’ve never seen before and that’s a Saint wearing spectacles. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t, I just find it quaint.

It would take too long in mentioning all the different frescoes around the walls (examples can be seen in the slide show below) suffice it to say that in its heyday this small church must have been very colourful indeed, especially when the paintings were new and before time had faded them.

However, there a some aspects of the decoration that merit special mention.

The chapel to the left of the altar was painted by Lorenzo Lotto in 1525, the final year of his more than 10 year stay in Bergamo. The main theme is the ‘life’ of the Virgin, from her birth, through her presentation at the Temple to her marriage to Joseph. These frescoes are more naturalistic than many of those which exist in the nave and the crypt and are a product of the Renaissance. Lotto was a contemporary of Titian but Giorgio Vasari (who is remembered today principally for his book Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects) didn’t think that the two were on a par and devoted little time to Lotto in his book on art history. An article I read about Lotto suggested that this might have been that Lotto wasn’t any good at painting nudes, either male or female, an interesting take on how an artist attains fame.

Birth of the Virgin, Lorenzo Lotto

Whatever Vasari might have thought Bergamo proclaims Lotto, not only for his work in San Michele but also for the altarpiece from the Church of the Santo Spiritu (just along from the Teatro Donizetti in the new town). At the moment there’s a gaping hole on the right hand side of the nave as the painting (the Pala di Santo Spiritu) has just completed a long and expensive renovation. It went on public show in the locale of one of the banks that had funded the restoration on the very afternoon that I left Bergamo so I wasn’t able to see it. I assume, however, that in the not too distant future it will return to its original home.

The central chapel was painted by Giovani Battista Guarinoni d’Averara in 1577. There’s a lot going on here and some of it is difficult to see as the huge altar gates prevent close inspection. What I like about Guarinoni d’Averara’s work is that it seems to be at that point of transition between the Romanesque and the Renaissance, even though he’s working quite late.

Expulsion of Rebel Angels from Heaven

To illustrate my point have a look at the lion in the top left hand corner, the symbol of Saint Mark, which has an almost human face. On the right hand side of the altar the depiction of the Archangel Michael chasing the Devil and, on the left, God’s good angels chasing Lucifer’s rebel angels out of Heaven all have reminders of the primitive and literal images that are in other parts of the building.

In the centre of the altar sits the small painting of the Madonna and Child (La Madonna del Buon Consiglio). On the 26th April each year this painting is mounted on a silver frame and paraded around the parish by the Pozzo Bianco Fraternity.

Madonna del Buon Consiglio

This is a small church but full of things to see and well worth the effort it might take to visit.

Lighting:

In the porch, right next to the doorway into the church itself, there’s a slot machine where, for different amounts of cents, you can light up parts or even the whole of the nave and crypt. If you arrive on a reasonably bright day there’s enough ambient light from the windows to see the majority of the frescoes (although the central altar will still be dim) but without the aid of the paid for light you’ll get little appreciation of the paintings in the crypt.

Location:

Via Porta Dipinta, 35/37, Città Alta, Bergamo

Opening Times:

Daily: 09.30 – 12.00 and 15.00 – 18.00

Entrance: Free

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