The church of Santo Spirito stands in the square of the same name in Bergamo, between via Pignolo and via Torquato Tasso; it is called the «church of the Tasso», from the name of the Bergamo family that contributed to the enlargement works in the early 16th century, and holds important works of art.
What to see
Cardinal Guglielmo Longhi founded the monastery of Santo Spirito in 1311, entrusting it to the Celestines; the original church had three aisles, a cloister and a hospital, and the community was a «double cenobium» of monks and nuns, called the brothers of the Holy Spirit. In 1475 the Celestines were replaced by the Canons Regular of the Lateran of Saint Augustine, who in the early 16th century began the remodelling in Renaissance forms, foreseen in the will of Agostino Tasso of 1507: work began in 1512 with the first three chapels on the right side, due largely to the Bergamo architect Pietro Isabello, and those on the left side were finished only between 1558 and 1560. The chapels were paid for by the new families of the via Pignolo palaces, such as the Cassotti Mazzoleni, the Gozzi, the Angelini and the Tasso; around 1720 the architect Giovan Battista Caniana removed the columns of the 14th-century aisles and built the barrel vault, while the façade was left unfinished. The monastery was suppressed in 1785 by the Republic of Venice.
The interior is a single nave, with five chapels on each side and great carved sandstone columns of Composite order, bearing the letter S crossed by a cross, the symbol of the Holy Spirit; the tondi with biblical figures in high relief are the only remnant of the old Celestine church. In the fourth chapel on the right is Lorenzo Lotto's canvas of the Madonna and Child with Saints Catherine, Sebastian and Anthony Abbot, dated 1521 and signed «L. Lotus», commissioned by the Marchetti Angelini merchants: it is a sacra conversazione set outdoors, with a host of joyful angels above, in reference to the coat of arms of the patron family, which had two angels. In the first chapel on the right are a Deposition by Giulio Carpioni and a Miracle of Saint Anthony of Padua, and in the second on the left a polyptych by Ambrogio Bergognone with the Descent of the Holy Spirit; on the façade a bronze sculpture by Francesco Somaini, of 1971, shows the descent and power of the Holy Spirit.
Visiting
The church is on piazza Santo Spirito, at the crossing of via Pignolo and via Torquato Tasso; opening hours and visits to the chapels should be checked on the spot, because the sources consulted do not give them.
Our editors' tip
In Lotto's canvas look up: the host of angels is not just decoration but an allusion to the coat of arms of the family that paid for the chapel, and shows how the merchants of via Pignolo used painting to declare their name.
