Palazzo Terzi

Above Piazza Vecchia, Palazzo Terzi is a noble residence rebuilt across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with decorated interiors and a terraced garden.

Why it matters

The Terzi were one of Bergamo's great feudal families, and their palace on today's Piazza Terzi remained a lived-in seat of the family rather than a museum. Its state of decoration — a Hall of Honour tracing the family's history, an eighteenth-century Mirror Room and Red Room, a room holding a painting attributed to Giambattista Tiepolo, and a hanging garden looking out over the plain — preserves an interior world that the city's civic monuments do not offer.

What to notice

The facade and south wing were extended in 1631 in connection with Terzi family marriages. The palace includes a courtyard, a terraced garden, the Salone d'Onore, the Mirror Room and the Red Room, with eighteenth-century decoration. The Tiepolo Room contains a painting attributed to Giambattista Tiepolo; the attribution remains qualified. The rooms' scale and stuccowork express domestic rather than civic architecture.

Context and history

The palace grew from a medieval family seat, rebuilt mainly between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with the documented 1631 expansion of the facade and south wing linked to dynastic marriages of the Terzi. Successive generations enriched the interiors, adding the eighteenth-century decorative cycles seen today. Unlike Bergamo's civic buildings, the palace remained associated with the Terzi family, preserving an aristocratic apartment ensemble.