Palazzo Nuovo – Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai

Palazzo Nuovo closes the west side of Piazza Vecchia in Bergamo’s Upper Town. Designed by Vincenzo Scamozzi and completed in the twentieth century, it has housed the Angelo Mai Civic Library since 1928, preserving a collection of manuscripts, early printed books and other works of European significance.

Why it matters

Palazzo Nuovo’s restrained façade forms one side of Piazza Vecchia, the historic civic centre of Bergamo. The building served as the town hall until 1873 and became the home of the Angelo Mai Civic Library in 1928. The library preserves manuscripts and printed works, including the collections associated with Cardinal Angelo Mai and the Sala Tassiana.

What to notice

The Scamozzian atrium contains seventeenth-century funerary monuments and a series of medallions depicting notable people from Bergamo. The Salone Furietti, formerly the hall of the Maggior Consiglio, has a stucco frieze by Giovanni Angelo Sala dated 1668–69 and portraits of prominent citizens. In the Sala Tassiana, stuccoes from 1615 and frescoes by Pietro Baschenis accompany the library’s Tasso collection and globes by Vincenzo Maria Coronelli, made in 1688 and 1692 and donated to the city in 1834.

Context and history

Construction began in the early seventeenth century following Scamozzi’s design. The façade was completed in 1928 by Ernesto Pirovano, who followed the original scheme; that year the Angelo Mai Library moved into the building. Palazzo Nuovo had served as Bergamo’s town hall until 1873 and later housed other civic institutions. Its pale stone came from the Zandobbio quarries in Val Cavallina. The library’s collections include incunabula, sixteenth-century editions and manuscripts.