There is a deep and ancient connection between Bergamo and the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, which stems from the unique conditions of its construction.
History of the Basilica of St. Mary Major
In the early 1100s, a terrible plague epidemic sweeps across Europe causing death and desolation. The people of Bergamo then decided to ask Our Lady for help: if she would protect them from the contagion, they would dedicate a church to her as thanksgiving. Because the people of Bergamo are people of their word, they followed through on their vow in 1137 and on the Piazza del Duomo in the Upper Town they built the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. They did things big: the church immediately revealed its splendor and was further embellished in the following centuries. Frescoes, stuccoes, tapestries and wooden inlays made to the design of the world-famous artist Lorenzo Lotto decorate the building’s interior today. Inside Santa Maria Maggiore is also enshrined the funeral monument to Gaetano Donizetti, the world-famous composer, symbol and spokesman for Bergamo.
The Basilica is distinctive because it is characterized by the lack of a central entrance and facade, which formed a single wall with the adjoining building. In fact, the four entrances to the church are all side entrances. At the base of the columns of the fourteenth-century prothyrs (small porticoes placed to protect and cover the main entrance of a church) by Giovanni da Campione, four red and white marble lions impassively and majestically guard the northern and southern entrances. On the north side, it opens onto Cathedral Square the gate called the Red Lions; the southern side, on the other hand, faces Rosate Square with the gate called the White Lions. The different coloring is given by the type of marble used: that of Verona for the reds and that of Candoglia (in the Piedmontese Val d’Ossola) for the whites. The site chosen is also not accidental: always considered sacred, already in Roman times it housed a pagan temple later destroyed dedicated to the goddess Clemenza, and in the 8th century another church dedicated to the Virgin was built there.
Curiosities
Between the two gates on the northern side are embedded in the wall the ancient measures in force in Bergamo during the medieval period: the Capitium Comunis Pergami (cavezzo – 2.63 meters) and the Brachium (arm – 53.1 cm) to which weavers and merchants referred when doing business.
