The John XXIII Episcopal Seminary is located on St. John’s Hill in the historic village of Bergamo Alta.
Over the centuries the educational structure has occupied various locations, and today’s complex is only the latest example.
In fact, the Bergamo Seminary was founded in 1567, just a few years after the Council of Trent (1545), which made this type of structure a mandatory requirement for all cathedrals; Bergamo’s was the seventh seminary to be founded anywhere in the world.
On Oct. 1, 1567, it opened at the Church of St. Pancratius, only to be later transferred, in 1572, to the Seminary on Tassis Street, which owes its name to it.
Finally, in 1821, the continued increase in vocations and educational needs of pupils led to its final relocation to the Hill.
Here it still towers today, albeit in a new guise: between 1961 and 1966, in fact, the existing buildings were deeply renovated according to a project signed by architects Sonzogni and Pizzigoni.
Architecturally, the complex looks like a veritable citadel within a citadel.
Stylistically, each of its buildings reinterprets the rhythms of medieval architecture by progressively declining it from a modern perspective, characterized by large windows with an almost industrial feel.
The facade is covered with stone slabs, plaster in various shades and gray trachyte for the window frames.
During the renovation, the existing Sozzi and Bernareggi palaces, the Church of St. John on the Hill and the facade of Palazzo Bianconi, which was the monumental entrance to the former seminary, were partly retained.
Other rooms were built from scratch to obtain eight levels, which respond to different functions.
They house the church, gymnasium, theater, kitchens and underground refectories on one side, and the high school, propaedeutic and theology classrooms and library on the other.
On the roofs of the underground structures, however, are the courtyards used for recreation.
What connects the different blocks are two ring-shaped galleries, from which stairs and elevators branch off to the various buildings
Emphasizing the spiritual nature of the complex is the underground church, centrally located with respect to the complex: with its ellipsoidal plan, the environment reminiscent of a cave and the giant stained-glass window that casts its gaze onto the churchyard and, from there, onto the city, it certainly remains imprinted.
The seminar is dedicated to the figure of Pope John XXIII, who was its most famous pupil and who encouraged the renovations, although destined never to see them completed.
At the inauguration of the new seminary (Nov. 5, 1967), the Pope had in fact already been missing for four years.
To him was also dedicated the majestic life-size statue that watches over the entrance, made in bronze by Stefano Ferrari in 1966, as well as one of the chapels of the underground church.