Santa Maria Maggiore. Bergamo. Lombardy, Italy скачать в хорошем качестве

Santa Maria Maggiore. Bergamo. Lombardy, Italy

According to popular tradition, the church was built in fulfillment of a vow made to the Madonna in 1133 by the people of Bergamo to protect Bergamo from the plague that was ravaging northern Italy. On August 15, 1137, the Bishop of Bergamo Gregorio blessed the foundation stone of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, built on the site of an earlier 8th-century church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Since then, the basilica has stood in the heart of the Upper Town, between Piazza Vecchia and Piazza Rosate, the most noble part of historic Bergamo, surrounded by Venetian walls. The church was originally built in Romanesque style. In 1351-53, Giovanni da Campione undertook a Gothic reconstruction of the basilica with the creation of a portal onto Piazza Vecchia in polychrome marble. Between 1576 and 1580, the interior of the church was transformed, with the removal of all side altars and all fresco paintings. The result of this transformation is almost literally the same as what we see today. The interior retains the original Romanesque Greek cross plan with a nave and two aisles separated by piers and ending in an apse, but the decoration is largely from the 17th-century Baroque reconstruction.