Panoramamura

Panoramamura presents Bergamo's defences from within. Run by the Museo delle Storie network, it opens the gun batteries, casemates and gunpowder magazine set into the sixteenth-century Venetian Walls — structures normally sealed in the ramparts — making the UNESCO-listed fortification legible from within its own embrasures.

Why it matters

The Venetian Walls of Bergamo became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2017 as part of the serial property of Venetian defence works. Launched in 2023, the year Bergamo and Brescia were jointly Italian Capital of Culture, the project interprets the sixteenth-century fortress through structures such as Porta Sant'Agostino, the Embrasure of San Giovanni and the Upper Gunpowder Magazine of San Marco. It makes the military architecture of the UNESCO-listed walls legible from within.

What to notice

The Embrasure of San Giovanni consists of low vaulted chambers where artillery was positioned, with slits framing the slopes below. In 2024 an immersive audio-visual experience added another interpretive layer to the Walls.

The seventeenth-century Polveriera Superiore di San Marco is a thick-walled, deliberately isolated gunpowder store, designed so an accidental explosion would not bring down neighbouring ramparts. Its position reflects the defensive logic of the fortifications.

Together, the bastions, casemates and magazines show how the fortress was organized in relation to the gates and the Città Alta.

Context and history

Bergamo's walls were built by the Republic of Venice from 1561 onward to secure the western edge of its mainland state, enclosing the Città Alta in a defensive ring so vast that much of the land inside was never fully built over. After military obsolescence the walls survived as a public promenade, and their recognition by UNESCO in 2017 renewed institutional attention to the individual structures embedded in them. Panoramamura was developed in phases over three years: 2023 saw the opening of the Gate of Sant'Agostino, the Embrasure of San Giovanni and the San Marco magazine; 2024 added the six-step audio-visual experience. Later project phases have continued to interpret other sections of the walls. The project belongs to the Museo delle Storie, the city network that also runs the Palazzo del Podestà and the Rocca.