Bergamo historical timeline

Bergamo was the Roman Bergomum, and an independent commune in the Middle Ages before falling to Milan’s Visconti. In 1428 it passed to the Republic of Venice, and stayed Venetian until Napoleon ended the republic in 1797.

That mattered enormously, because Bergamo was Venice’s westernmost mainland possession — the front line facing Milan. Between 1561 and 1588 the Venetians built the walls that still enclose the upper town, demolishing a large part of the existing city, including a church, to do it. The walls were never attacked. They are now UNESCO-listed as part of a group of Venetian defensive works.

The Lion of Saint Mark is still carved at the gates, and the long Venetian period left Bergamo with a legal and administrative culture distinct from Milan’s, which locals will still tell you about.

Gaetano Donizetti was born here in 1797 in a basement room in the upper town, wrote around seventy operas, and died in the city fifty-one years later. The theatre, a festival and a good deal of civic pride follow from that.