Venetian Walls of Bergamo

The Venetian Walls of Bergamo are an imposing architectural construction dating from the 16th century, well preserved as they have not, over the centuries, suffered any act of war.

The circuit consists of 14 bastions, 2 levels, 32 sentry boxes (of which only one survives as a witness), 100 gun ports, two powder magazines, and 4 gates: Sant'Agostino, San Giacomo — undoubtedly the finest and most scenic — Sant'Alessandro and San Lorenzo, the last also known as the Porta Garibaldi. To all this must be added a multitude of sallies and military passages, some now largely forgotten, such as the lower Porta del Pantano, dating from the 13th century, which linked to Via Borgo Canale, while the upper Porta del Pantano, which gave access to the upper part of the Visconti citadel, has disappeared.

The bastions, seen from outside, give the city the appearance of an impregnable fortress, but since they were built in the second half of the 16th century, the rise of the flat-trajectory bombard cannon in effect makes them the swan song of this type of military construction.

Since 9 July 2017 the Venetian Walls have been part of the UNESCO World Heritage, in the transnational serial site "Venetian Works of Defence between the 16th and 17th Centuries: Stato da Terra – Western Stato da Mar".

Machine-translated from “Mura veneziane di Bergamo” on the Italian Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Venetian Walls of Bergamo ranks #2,870 of 8,764 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #231 of the 528 mapped in Italy. Founded 1561, it is older than 38% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 827 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 8,037 times in the last 60 days, more than 91% of the atlas. 2 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Milan, 46 km away. See how Italy compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia (in Italian) ↗