As you walk down the long Via Pignolo, a medieval street in Bergamo that connects the Lower Town to the beginning of the Upper Town, you will suddenly come to an opening overlooked by the Church of Sant’Alessandro della Croce.
Legend has it that it was first built as far back as the time of Alexander’s martyrdom in the fourth century; between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was completed internally, while the façade, which remained unfinished, was later and not built until 1922.
It is named “of the Cross” because it was built at the crossroads of four medieval villages.
It is endowed with one of Bergamo’s most significant pictorial ensembles, of which we would like to point out to you, among others, two works by Gian Battista Moroni; ‘Coronation of the Virgin’ placed in the counterfaçade and the ‘Crucifixion with Saints Sebastian, John the Baptist and a worshipper’ in the sacristies.
Three chapels on each side open soaring up the sides of the nave: in the first chapel you’ll find the empty urn of what was once the tomb of St. Alexander, whose remains are now enshrined in Bergamo Cathedral dedicated to him.
In the second chapel on the right, however, you will be able to admire an altar composed exclusively of precious, inlaid and polychrome marble, created by master Andrea Fantoni in 1729.
A unique work for the time and an expression of great craftsmanship.