![Sala con affreschi e schermo raffigurante Carlo V](https://museodellestorie.bergamo.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/museo-del-cinquecento-a-bergamo.jpg)
Museo del Cinquecento
Bergamo and the ‘golden age’ of La Serenissima
In the Palazzo del Podestà, this museum presents history in a new way, mixing knowledge and play, intellect and emotion, in a multimedia exhibition that’s designed for the general public. Objects that bear witness to the past (paintings, manuscripts, maps, and documents) ’come to life’, portraying the 16th century with an innovative and original approach. The Museo del 500 is a museum about Renaissance Bergamo and the ‘golden age’ of La Serenissima, the Republic of Venice.
Informations
Includes visit to Palazzo del Podestà + Museo del Cinquecento + Campanone
Full 5€
Reduced 3€
Amici del Museo delle storie di Bergamo, University students up to 26 years old, Groups of 15 people, discounts
Reduced 1€
Children and teens 11-17 years old
Free
Children from 0 to 10 years, disabled, ICOM members, journalists, licensed guides, Abbonamento Musei Lombardia
Highlights
![](https://museodellestorie.bergamo.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/museo-del-cinquecento-in-palazzo.jpg)
Apothecary cabinet
In the room dedicated to apothecaries in the 1500s, some interactive ‘drawers’ explain the medicinal, cosmetic and culinary uses of spices and animal-derived products exercised by 16th-century ‘pharmacists’. Opening the drawers, visitors are catapulted into a world that hovers between cooking, science and magic. Here are a few examples of such cures: snails slowly consumed in the heat of the fire yield an oil useful for lengthening and strengthening hair; snake skin cooked in wine is dripped into the ears to combat pain; coral is crushed with porphyry, useful against epilepsy.
![porzione di dipinto di Alvise Cima raffigurante il perimetro di Bergamo](https://museodellestorie.bergamo.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cima-in-palazo-del-podesta-a-bergamo.jpg)
Bird’s-eye view of Bergamo by Alvise Cima, 1693
Dated 1693, this painting is a wonderful perspective view of Bergamo as it appeared before the Venetian walls were built, by the Bergamasque painter Alvise Cima. Cima’s view transports us to a very detailed Medieval Bergamo, portrayed as if the viewer were hovering above the city. It lets the eye wander among the city’s churchyards, convents, military buildings and private homes. The harmony of the image of the Medieval city is broken up by a very visible black line, which represents the outline of the Venetian walls, built between 1561 and 1588.
![globo con all'interno la mappa di Africa ed Europa](https://museodellestorie.bergamo.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/sala-del-globo-in-palazzo-del-podesta-bergamo.jpg)
Globe
An audio-visual installation in the form of a ‘globe’ reflects the change between Medieval Mappae Mundi and new, ‘modern’ geographical maps: from the globe of the Camaldolese monk named Fra Mauro, which demonstrates the persistence of Medieval legends, monsters and mirabilia along the edges of the oecumene, up to the incredible world map drawn in 1508 by the Florentine painter and cartographer Francesco Rosselli, the first example of an oval world map complete with a grid of meridians and parallels.
Museo del Cinquecento
Between 2001 and 2011, the Palazzo del Podestà was renovated and restored. As of 2012, it has been the home of the Museo del 500, a museum dedicated to the 1500s
Modern technology and communication are in dialogue with the history of the Palazzo del Podestà, taking visitors on a journey through the 16th century, a crucial time in Italy, Europe and the world.
Venetian Bergamo is part of this broader context: visitors will travel from Venice to Bergamo with envoys, rectors, merchants and vagabonds, and then into the city, through villages and neighbourhoods, palaces and monasteries populated by locals and their stories. Immersed in 16th-century life, visitors will also witness the construction of the city walls, a lasting symbol of Venetian rule and a UNESCO heritage site as of 2017.
![Tavolo interattivo della fiera di Bergamo. Sul retro installazioni video a forma di cubo](https://museodellestorie.bergamo.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/museo-del-cinquecento-a-bergamo-def.jpg)
Discover the museum
The seven rooms of the exhibition take visitors from the end of the Middle Ages to the terrible fire at the Bergamo Fair in 1591. A journey within the relationship between Bergamo and Venice in the 16th century.colo.
01
The new world
From Medieval geography to the arrival of Europeans in the “new world”
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The new world
The journey begins with the symbolism of the Medieval world, amid monstrous creatures and mysterious characters, up to notions of the ‘new’ one: animated graphics on Renaissance maps are accompanied by interwoven tales told by the voices of men in the 1500s. They reveal an ever-expanding world that was made up not only of Venice, with its trade with the Orient and its policy of alliances, but also its dominions on land, protected in the West by a border town: Bergamo
02
A difficult journey
Bandits, bad roads and evil spirits made the journey between Venice and Bergamo difficult.
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A difficult journey
The exhibition continues in Room II, taking visitors on a veritable journey of their own between Venice and Bergamo: an interactive map demonstrates the challenges, routes and unexpected events that someone in the Renaissance might have come up against when going from Venice to Bergamo. En route, visitors travel in the footsteps of the envoys, rectors, merchants, mail couriers and vagabonds that set out from Venice, overcoming various hurdles along the way.
03
Bergamo in the 1500s
After a difficult journey, we reach the city “supra monte mirabellissima”
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Bergamo in the 1500s
Walking the streets of a Bergamo still unchanged by the construction of the city walls, you’ll explore neighbourhoods, hamlets, palaces and monasteries, to discover who lived in the city and learn their stories. You’ll stumble upon the homes of Bergamo merchants in the Cassotti family and the paintings that Lorenzo Lotto completed in Bergamo; you’ll learn of the tribulations of the Captain General of the fortress of Bergamo, Astorre Baglioni, and of the ‘bishop-heretic’ Vittore Soranzo, twice condemned by the Holy Office.
04
The Venetian city walls
The construction of the Venetian city walls forever changed the city
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The Venetian city walls
The effort to build the Venetian City Walls (1561-1588) completely changed the city. In Room IV, animated graphics on the map of 17th-century Bergamo by Stefano Scolari (accompanied by the report written by the ‘Captain’ of Bergamo, Giovanni da Lezze), recreate the look and feel of Bergamo with its new walls, and make it possible to identify the most important places in terms of local politics and business.
05
In theapothecary
Folk cures and spices from the East filled shops in 16th-century Bergamo
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In theapothecary
In the 1500s, Bergamo was a city vibrant with trade, full of all kinds of shops and workshops. Visitors will first enter an apothecary: thanks to collections of recipes of the time and a shop inventory from 1601, you’ll learn all about the ingredients and concoctions used by the aromatari of Renaissance Bergamo. Their combinations of spices were used both to make dishes tastier and to heal many illnesses and ailments.
06
At the printer’s
La stampa a caratteri mobili rivoluziona e amplia il commercio librario in città
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At the printer’s
Leaving the apothecary’s, you’ll immediately enter a printer’s shop, a room that lets visitors discover one of the most important innovations of the modern era: the invention of movable type printing. A multimedia table invites the public to ‘play’ with the titles (including taboo ones!) found in the publishing landscape of Bergamo at the time, taken from the collections of various private local libraries.
07
The old fairgrounds
The Fair of Saint Alexander attracted merchants from all over Italy and Europe
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The old fairgrounds
The exhibition ends at the large Field of Saint Alexander in Lower Bergamo, where the big market and fair once took place: voices and sounds enliven the passageways between the shops (called trasande) of merchants who came from all over Europe to Bergamo for the feast day of Saint Alexander, the patron saint of the city. Details taken from Bergamasque paintings tell us about the goods bought and sold at the fair and their uses. An audio-visual projection provides a first-person experience of the ‘terrible fire of the entire Bergamo fair’ which took place in 1591
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