The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is a church in Bergamo, Northern Italy.
The church was founded in 1137 on the site of another church from the 8th century dedicated to St Mary, which had been in turn erected over a Roman temple of the Clemence. The high altar was consecrated in 1185 and in 1187 the presbytery and the transept wings were completed. Due to financial troubles, the works dragged for the whole 13th14th centuries. The bell tower was built from 1436 (being completed around the end of the century), while in 14811491 a new sacristy added after the old one had been destroyed by Bartolomeo Colleoni to erect his personal mausoleum, the Colleoni Chapel.
In 1521, Pietro Isabello finished the south-western portal, also known as Porta della Fontana. The edifice was restored and modified in the 17th century.
The main apse is crowned by a loggia surmounted by two frieze with geometrical and vegetables patterns, and has blind arcades with semi-columns. The latter's capitals have also vegetable themes, with the exception of one, decorated by Angels with Last Judgement's Trumpets.
The transept's apses have a structure similar to the main one.
Detail of one of the lions supporting the columns of the right transept porch.
Notable is Giovanni da Campione's porch in the left transept, which is supported by columns departing from lions in Veronese marble. the arch has a frieze with hunting scenes, while the vault is decorated by polychrome lozenges. A loggia houses statues of St Barbara, St Vincent and St Alexander. At the peak is a Gothic niche by Hans von Fernach (1403), with the Madonna with Child flanked by St Esther and St Grata (1398). also by Giovanni da Campione is the porch of the right transept, with a similar though simpler structure. The columns are supported by lions in white marble. It has reliefs with Christ Crowned by Saints and Birth of the Baptist.
Isabello's Renaissance porch has, in the lunette, a fresco of Mary's Nativity attributed to Andrea Previtali.
The interior has maintained the originary Romanesque Greek cross plan, with a nave and two aisles divided by pilasters and ending with an apse, but the decoration its largely from the 17th century Baroque renovation.
On the walls are tapestries, partly executed in Florence (15831586) under Alessandro Allori's design, partly of Flemish manufacture, depicting the Life of Mary. Over the tapestry of the Crucifixion (executed in Antwerp on Ludwig van Schoor's cartoons, 1698) is a painting by Luca Giordano, with the Passage of the Red Sea (1691).
In the presbytery itself, housing six bronze candelabra from 1597, is a wooden choir designed by Bernardo Zenale and Andrea Previtali. The reliefs with Biblical tales were executed in 15241555 on designs by Lorenzo Lotto. They are characterized by a polychrome effect rendered through the use of different wood types.
The right transepts has Giottesque frescoes from an unknown artist, with Histories of St Aegidius, The Last Supper and the Tree of Life (1347), partially covered by a 17th century fresco.
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La Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore è una chiesa che si trova a Bergamo Alta, in piazza del Duomo. Edificata nella seconda metà del XII secolo, l'esterno conserva le linee architettoniche romanico-lombarde originarie, mentre l'interno è decorato in stile barocco (1500 e 1600).
Secondo la tradizione popolare, parzialmente suffragata da documenti, la chiesa fu edificata per ottemperare ad un voto fatto alla Madonna nel 1133 dai bergamaschi perché ponesse fine ad una prolungata siccità.
Un'iscrizione posta sul portale dell'ingresso meridionale (detto dei Leoni bianchi) fa risalire la costruzione della basilica al 1137, ma molto più probabilmente i lavori cominciarono nel 1157 sul sito di una preesistente chiesa del VIII secolo dedicata alla Vergine, a sua volta eretta sopra un tempio pagano dedicato alla dea Clemenza, ma ad oggi non esistono fonti che confermino questo fatto.
Nel corso del XIV e XV secolo i lavori furono ripresi dai Maestri Campionesi, con l'aggiunta del battistero (1340) e dei tre protiri (1353, 1360 e 1366) di Giovanni da Campione.
Tra il 1436 e il 1459, ad opera di Bertolasio Moroni di Albino, fu realizzato il campanile fino alla cella campanaria, sopralzato poi verso la fine del Cinquecento, e tra il 1485 e il 1491 la Sagrestia nuova, dato che la vecchia era stata demolita per erigere la Cappella Colleoni.
Il 23 giugno 1449 il Senato e il Maggior Consiglio di Bergamo affidarono la gestione della chiesa al Consorzio della Misericordia Maggiore, prestigioso sodalizio fondato nel 1265 da Pinamonte da Brembate, allo scopo di conservare ed arricchire il patrimonio artistico della Basilica.
Nel 1521 fu realizzato il portale di sud-ovest, detto Porta della Fontana da Pietro Isabello. (less info)