25 Photos Looking West Over Bergamo from a Tower from 2022 - 2025
There's nothing like a funeral, wake or entombment ceremony to mark time and leave one a bit wistful. After 10 years or so now in Italy, we’ve been to at least one of these events every year. We’ve spent more time at the Cimitero Monumentale di Bergamo (and the hospital for that matter) than we’ve ever would have guessed when we arrived here years ago. Both are places that are surprisingly human and decidedly not scary.
Recently, we went to two wakes with the space of two weeks (same family) at the Casa del Commiato Bergamo - Centro Funerario Bergamasco, which you could translate as “House of Goodbye”, where commiato is farewell or goodbye. A wake is technically, called a veglia funebre, but it’s not something we hear often.
Bergamo’s Cimitero Monumental is beautifully landscaped and has many interesting tombs to look at, not that we would specifically pick it out for a stroll but one can’t help but notice when there, paying respects. The other day, we went to attend an entombment (one of deceased from the commiato), the putting of the ashes in the columbarium of a family vault, and had a chance to do a few laps around the cemetery. We were looking for said family and couldn’t find them. They had turned off their phones. After a while, we gave up and returned to the front office to ask. Next thing you know, we are riding around with the director of the cemetery in a Panda. He didn’t trust we would find the spot based on his directions (Yes, we played the helpless American tourist card a bit.) We didn't find the family however as they had moved on to another relative’s tomb (the other deceased from the commiato). Tomb chasing is what we did that day.
The hospital (on other end of the city) is like a small self-contained city with restaurants, shops, and interesting artwork. It’s not the worse destination you’d have to visit. To give some structure to our visits we typically seek out some of the more interesting pieces of artwork and have a running catalog of favorites.
The people who have disappeared in no particular order: Flamina, Blandina, Gino, Maria, Nunzia, Hotlips, Andrea, Luigi, Domenico, and Mario come to mind. Here’s a caro saluto from our torretta, where we see the sun track across the sky daily. The composite image is 25 images looking west over Bergamo's lower city and part of the upper city.
Left: A close-up of a work by Renzo Colombo, part of the Lascito Fumagalli in the ASST Azienda Ospedaliera Papa Giovanni XXIII.
Right: A close-up of the work "Robot" by Ivano Parolini, part of the TheTubeOne Exhibit in the ASST Azienda Ospedaliera Papa Giovanni XXIII.
Left: Cimitero Monumentale di Bergamo - entrance. Right: Inside with a statue.
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