Not far from the heart of the upper city, cross Hay Market Square to discover a fine example of medieval convent architecture full of hidden treasures: the Convent of St. Francis.
This evocative place is also the setting for the Sestini Museum of Photography, one of the most technological photography museums in Italy!
Convent of St. Francis
The Cloister of the Arches, the Cloister of the Well, and the Chapter House reveal to you the long history of this building with their cycles of frescoes created between the 14th and 17th centuries.
The panoramic terrace offers the eye an unmissable horizon: the intersection of the two valleys, Brembana and Seriana.
Now home to the offices, archives, and library of the Bergamo Museum of History, the convent hosts temporary exhibitions dedicated to the 20th century and historical photography.
Currently active is the exhibition Postcard Photographs.
Bergamo and its province 1940-19
Sestini Museum of Photography
The Sestini Museum of Photography enhances its photographic heritage with an interdisciplinary exhibition dedicated to the world of historical photography and divided into two sections: one scientific and one historical.
Phenomenal Visions-the science section is developed in three environments.
In each, activities are offered to guide visitors to discover the process of vision, phenomena governing the propagation of light, perceptual deceptions, and analogies between the workings of the human eye and the camera.
Museum of Photography-the historical section leads visitors to discover the history of photography between local and international dimensions.
Suggestive multimedia installations re-propose the techniques of photographic processing from the first half of the 1800s to the second half of the 1900s, reconstruct the spread of photographic studios in the Bergamo area and illustrate the funds of the Sestini Photographic Archive. The itinerary is completed by the exhibition of antique machines and original instrumentation in an evocative journey into the world of “wonderful discovery.”
Bergamo 900
A new museum that tells the 20th century from the territory.
A new museum that experiments with exploration from the particular to the general, in search of those histories of the territory, many of them hitherto unwritten, that met (or collided) with Great History.
A true narrative world, built around four keys to interpreting the 20th century – The Facts, The Places, The Life, The Voices – drawing on all possible media: audiovisual, photographic, documentary, oral and material sources.
Including the living voices of famous protagonists of the great cultural, scientific, economic, social and sports enterprises that saw Bergamo as a protagonist of the national and international 20th century.
In four halls, visitors will be able to retrace nearly 100 years of changes, revolutions, and movements: from economic, political, cultural, and social changes to new forms of aggregation, from daily life to modern forms of communication, and to environmental issues.
