The story
In September 2025 the diocese of Bergamo reopened its museum in the old bishop's palace on Piazza Duomo, in the upper town, between the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore and the Colleoni Chapel. Ten rooms on two floors hold around 60 works from the 14th to the 20th century, much of it art from the churches of the diocese. The museum is named after Adriano Bernareggi, bishop of Bergamo from 1936 to 1953, who began the diocese's work of safeguarding that art.
The paintings are led by Lorenzo Lotto, the Venetian who worked in Bergamo from 1513 to 1525. His Assumption of the Virgin hangs here, and so does his Holy Trinity, which he painted for a church of the Trinity that was later pulled down. Its owner, the parish of Sant'Alessandro della Croce, has lent it to the museum. After Lotto come Andrea Previtali, a local painter trained in Venice, the portraitist Giovan Battista Moroni and Evaristo Baschenis, known for still lifes of musical instruments. In the same palace is the Aula Picta, the bishops' 13th-century audience hall, its walls painted with scenes from the life of Christ.
