Palazzo del Podestà - Casa Suardi

The palace has a history as long as it is complex, tied to the numerous changes in government, purpose, and the needs of Bergamo. Built by the Suardi family in the mid-14th century, it later became the property of the Consorzio della Misericordia and the Avogadro family, and from 1428 to 1797, it housed the Podestà of Bergamo, the highest representative of the Venetian State in the city.
In the early 1800s, it became the seat of the Court of Appeal as well as the Praetorian prisons. Over a century later, it hosted the Museum of Natural History, before being ceded in 1942 to the Provincial Fascist Federation. After the latter's dissolution, the palace passed to the Italian state, and in 1956 it returned to municipal ownership. In the early 1960s, it housed the Alta Scuola of Journalism, and since 1968, the University of Bergamo.

In recent years, the palace underwent extensive renovations, completed in 2023, and from March 2024, it has housed part of the collections of the nearby "Angelo Mai" Library, including the Municipal Historical Archive (sections of the Ancient Regime, 19th century, and Post-Unification), the Rectors' Archive, the Giacomo Quarenghi Collection, the Luigi Angelini Archive (architecture drawings section), the Sandro Angelini Archive, the Prints and Drawings collections, and the Municipal Parchment Collection.

In 1477, the façade was decorated with frescoes by Donato Bramante, fragments of which are preserved in the Salone delle Capriate of the Palazzo della Ragione.