Bergamo
Description
Bergamo ; Lombard: Bèrghem, listen ) is a city in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km (25 mi) northeast of Milan and 30 km (19 mi) from the lakes Como and Iseo. The foothills of the Bergamo Alps begin immediately north of the town.
Bergamo is the seat of the Province of Bergamo. With a population of around 120,000, Bergamo is the fourth-largest city in Lombardy. The metropolitan area of Bergamo extends beyond the administrative city limits, spanning over a densely urbanized area with slightly less than 500,000 inhabitants.
The Bergamo metropolitan area is itself part of the broader Milan metropolitan area, home to over 8 million people. As of 2015, Bergamo is the second most visited city in Lombardy after Milan.
Bergamo is well connected to several cities in Europe and the Mediterranean through Il Caravaggio International Airport, the third-busiest airport in Italy with 10.5 million passengers in 2015, and the motorway A4 stretching on the axis between Milan, Verona, and Venice.
History
Antiquity
Bergamo occupies the site of the ancient town of Bergomum, founded as a settlement of the Celtic tribe of Cenomani. In 49 BC it became a Roman municipality, containing c. 10,000 inhabitants at its peak. An important hub on the military road between Friuli and Raetia, it was destroyed by Attila in the 5th century.
Middle Ages
From the 6th century Bergamo was the seat of one of the most important Lombard duchies of northern Italy, together with Brescia, Trento, and Cividale del Friuli: its first Lombard duke was Wallaris. After the conquest of the Lombard Kingdom by Charlemagne, it became the seat of a county under one Auteramus (d. 816). An important Lombardic hoard dating from the 6th to 7th centuries AD was found in the vicinity of the city in the nineteenth century and is now in the British Museum.
From the 11th century onwards, Bergamo was an independent commune, taking part in the Lombard League which defeated Frederick I Barbarossa in 1165. The local Guelph and Ghibelline factions were the Colleoni and Suardi, respectively. Feuding between the two initially caused the family of Omodeo Tasso to flee north c. 1250, but he returned to Bergamo in the later 13th century to organize the city's couriers: this would eventually lead to the Imperial Thurn und Taxis dynasty generally credited with organizing the first modern postal service. From 1264, Bergamo was intermittently under the rule of Milan. In 1331, it gave itself to John of Bohemia, but the Milanese Visconti reconquered it.
Early modern
After a short conquest by the Malatesta in 1407, in 1428 it fell under the control of the Venetian Republic, remaining part of it until 1797. Between 1797 and 1815, Bergamo and its territory were included in the political entities born in North Italy during the French and Napoleonic dominion. Notably, the Venetians fortified the higher portion of the town (see Main sights section).
Late modern and contemporary
In 1815, it was assigned to the Austrian Empire. Giuseppe Garibaldi freed it in 1859 during the Second Italian War of Independence, when Bergamo became part of the Kingdom of Italy. For its contribution to "Il Risorgimento" the city is also known as "Città dei Mille" ("City of the Thousand"). During the 20th century Bergamo became one of Italy's most industrialized cities. It is also one of the few Italian cities that did not suffer major destruction during World War II.
Geography
Culture
Music
Bergamo has a prominent place in music history. The large Romanesque church of Santa Maria Maggiore, begun in 1137, had a continuous and well-documented tradition of music teaching and singing for more than eight hundred years. When the town was under Venetian control, the musical style of the Venetians was imported as well; in particular, a large instrumental ensemble grew up to support the choral singing. Composers such as Gasparo Alberti produced music with polyphony using two organs, brass and viols, a style usually associated with Venice, but which flourished in the fine acoustic environment of Santa Maria Maggiore.
The city lent its name to a style of folk dance known as bergamask peculiar to the peoples of that region. Known as bergomasci and renowned for their buffoonery, the fool Bottom in Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night's Dream refers to their Bergomask dance. This unconventional form gave Debussy a vehicle for the dissonances and irregular intervals of his "Suite bergamasque".
Prominent musicians born in Bergamo include Gaetano Donizetti, Pietro Locatelli, Antonio Lolli, Gianluigi Trovesi, Roby Facchinetti, Alfredo Piatti, Fabrizio Frigeni and Gianandrea Gavazzeni. Alessandro Grandi, one of the most progressive composers of the early 17th century after Monteverdi, was maestro di cappella there until his death in the plague of 1630; Tarquinio Merula, an even more progressive composer, and one of the founders of the early sonata, took over his post.
Transport
Airport
Bergamo is served by Il Caravaggio International Airport 5 km (3 mi) south-east of the town, the third busiest airport in Italy, serving 10.404.625 million passengers in 2015. The city is also served by Milan Linate Airport 50 km (31 mi) south-west of Bergamo.
Motorway
Motorway A4 is the main axis connecting the city with the east and the west of the country, to cities such as Milan, Turin, Venice and Trieste.
Railway
Bergamo railway station is connected with the rest of Lombardy by trains for Milan, Lecco, Cremona, Treviglio, Brescia and Monza. Railway service is operated by Trenord and TiLo.
Urban transport
Transport within Bergamo is managed by ATB and includes a network of bus lines together with two funicular systems opened in 1887 (Funicolare di Bergamo Alta) and in 1912 (Funicolare di Bergamo-San Vigilio). The Bergamo–Albino light rail was inaugurated in 2009. Three light rail lines are currently in planning stage:
- Line 1 Bergamo FS - Albino
- Line 2 Bergamo FS - Villa d'Almè - San Pellegrino Terme
- Line 3 Hospital-Railway Station FS-Trade Fair - Bergamo Airport.
