CAMPANONE

At the top, reachable on foot or more conveniently by lift, is the largest bell in Lombardy, cast by Bartolomeo Pesenti in 1656. Two other smaller ones flank it: the smaller one dates back to 1474; while the middle one is from 1948, made after the destruction of the previous one, requisitioned and melted down by the RSI during the Second World War.

Born essentially with defence and representation tasks, over the centuries the tower has entered the hearts and imagination of all Bergamasks, who now consider it a fundamental element of the city skyline. Its function, of an exquisitely civic nature, was to emit acoustic signals on special political occasions, in addition to marking secular time.

Even today, every evening at 10 p.m., the Campanone strikes its evocative hundred chimes as a perennial reminder of the closing of the city gates for the start of the curfew, along the walls, during Venetian rule.

The Campanone is one of the six sites in the network of the Museo delle storie di Bergamo (Bergamo History Museum), a diffuse historical museum that tells the story of Bergamo from Roman times to the 20th century.